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Kraft Foods China pushes for local Oreo flavors

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When US food giant Kraft came to China, it brought with it the recipes that helped bring it success in the west. But in China, it's having to adapt to unfamiliar tastes.

Fabulous Beef Stew Ritz crackers -- Lays Numb and Spicy Hot Pot potato Chips - and Wrigley's cucumber gum. To survive in the world's biggest grocery market, global food companies are learning to taste Chinese.

To find out how, we visited Kraft's creative kitchen and factory in China, the first time cameras were allowed in. Maggie Wang has overseen Krafts' Chinese recipes for nearly two decades, and seen many unique ideas.

Oreos come in blueberry, orange, and peanut flavors.

The highlight, a new kind of Oreo baked in the lab. She took a bite. Maggie Wang, Biscuit R & D Director of Asia Pacific, Kraft Foods, said, "She said no, no, no, don't swallow it because. I said why? I feel started to something strange, and I said what did you put in the middle? She said, oh I actually put the chewing gum."

Only about five out of a hundred ideas make it to store shelves. Flavors that are too regional, such as fish boiled in spicy Sichuan peppercorn oil are even too much for many Chinese.

Shawn Warren, President of Kraft Foods China made the push for local flavors in 2005 as Oreo sales were in a funk.

Shawn Warren, president of Kraft Foods China, said, "Consumers in China said we'd like to get a little bit more taste excitement as well. And so that's what we listened to."

In China, US food giant Kraft is having to adapt to unfamiliar tastes.

Oreos which recently celebrated their 100th birthday have exploded in new flavors and forms in China that make up half of Oreo sales here. Birthday cake Oreo, which has a special frosting flavor. Strawberry, Green Tea, Mango Orange, Peach Grape Double Fruit.

Shawn Warren, president of Kraft Foods China, said, "We've done some tests in the U.S. and still think they need to optimize and tweak it, but stay tuned and maybe we'll see it in the U.S., maybe in the not so distant future."

So the wafer or maybe even the ice cream Oreo will be the first China born Oreo to make the journey back to its ancestor's land of New Jersey.