Oreo Built a 'Doomsday' Vault to Protect Its Recipe and Cookies

Since 2008, the Svaldbard Global Seed Vault in Norway has served as one of the last lines of defense against the annihilation of plant life on Earth. The secure facility, built into the side of a mountain, holds over one million seed samples, offering hope that if all other existence of a crop is wiped out, a final backup will still be available. This is great if you want fruits and vegetables or whatever, but what if you want cookies?

With that in mind, Oreo grabbed some land right down the road from the Svaldbard Global Seed Vault and built its own Global Oreo Vault. Bring on the apocalypse.

Announced on Friday, the Global Oreo Vault is—in the words of Oreo—"really real," though it is significantly smaller than its seed counterpart. The cookie brand says this Oreo-focused facility holds just "the Oreo recipe and a large stockpile of cookies."

But if all hell does break loose on our planet, know that you'll always find the world's best-selling cookies at the coordinates 78° 08' 58.1" N, 16° 01' 59.7" E. Whether you'll be able to find some milk, well, that's a different situation entirely.

The vault is a silly idea—backed by an even sillier set of videos on YouTube featuring actors portraying Oreo executives—but despite the tongue-in-cheek tone to the advertising side of the project, the brand apparently really did go the extra mile to assure their cookies are safe inside.

"As an added precaution, the Oreo packs are wrapped in mylar, which can withstand temperatures from -80 degrees to 300 degrees Fahrenheit and is impervious to chemical reactions, moisture and air, keeping the cookies fresh and protected for years to come," Oreo announced.

Meanwhile, the whole scenario is based on a real, if very slim, threat. Back in August, the official Twitter account for NASA Asteroid Watch posted that a "very small" asteroid—known as 2018VP1—had a 0.41 percent chance of entering Earth atmosphere the first week in November.

Even NASA pointed out this asteroid wouldn't cause any threat since "it would disintegrate due to its extremely small size." Still, Oreo apparently decided not to take any chances. And regardless, now that the vault is built, we shouldn't have anything to worry about moving forward if a bigger one is ever on a crash course.