Best Biscuit Brands You Should Know

If you have ever stood in a supermarket biscuit aisle in a country that isn't yours, you already know that biscuit brands do not travel evenly. Some are everywhere — Oreo, McVitie's, Lotus. Others are quietly enormous in their home market and almost invisible elsewhere. This guide is about the brands worth seeking out: the ones that earn their reputations, the ones whose signature product is genuinely worth the trip, and the ones we ship most often through Biscuit Brand.

1. Lotus Bakeries — Belgium

Founded in Lembeke, Belgium, in 1932, Lotus is the brand behind Biscoff, the caramelised speculoos biscuit served on millions of European flights since the 1980s. The success of the cookie has carried the brand into spreads, ice cream, and a whole speculoos-flavoured ecosystem. If you only ever taste one continental European biscuit, make it a Lotus Biscoff.

2. McVitie's — United Kingdom

McVitie's invented the digestive in 1892 and has been the default British biscuit ever since. The chocolate digestive — milk or dark — is one of the UK's most-bought biscuits year after year. The brand is owned today by pladis and sits at the centre of any conversation about UK biscuit brands.

3. Parle-G — India

Parle-G is, by sheer volume, one of the most-sold biscuit brands on the planet. The simple, sweet, glucose biscuit costs almost nothing, ships everywhere in India, and has become a national symbol. If you have ever wondered which biscuit goes with chai for a billion people, the answer is usually a Parle-G.

4. Britannia — India

India's other giant. Britannia's range covers everything from Marie Gold and Good Day to the heavily premium Treat and NutriChoice lines. Together with Parle, Britannia owns most Indian biscuit shelves and exports widely across the Gulf, Africa, and Southeast Asia.

5. Bahlsen — Germany

Bahlsen, founded in Hannover in 1889, sells the iconic Leibniz butter biscuit (the rectangular one with 52 little teeth). The brand also makes Choco Leibniz, Pick Up!, and Messino. Bahlsen is what most Germans mean when they say "Keks."

6. Arnott's — Australia

Arnott's is the maker of Tim Tam — the chocolate-coated, cream-filled biscuit that is to Australia roughly what the chocolate digestive is to Britain. The brand also makes Mint Slice, Iced VoVos, and the savoury Shapes range. If you visit Australia, this is the biscuit shelf that matters.

7. Walkers Shortbread — Scotland

Walkers has been making butter shortbread in Aberlour, Scotland, since 1898. The red tartan packaging is unmistakable. Walkers is one of the few brands that has refused to industrialise its butter content — which is why their shortbread tastes the way shortbread is supposed to.

8. Mondelēz / Nabisco (Oreo) — United States

Oreo is the world's best-selling cookie and the only biscuit brand that has decisively crossed every major market — North America, Europe, China, India, Latin America. The brand's flexibility (mint, peanut butter, golden, gluten-free, regional special editions) is part of its longevity.

9. Tunnock's — Scotland

The makers of the iconic Tunnock's Tea Cake and Tunnock's Caramel Wafer. Founded in 1890 in Uddingston, Scotland, and still family-owned. The foil-wrapped tea cake is the cult biscuit of British train journeys.

10. Havanna — Argentina

Argentina's national alfajor brand. An alfajor is a sandwich biscuit filled with dulce de leche and coated in chocolate or meringue. Havanna alfajores are the gold standard, and they are now exported across the Americas and into Europe.

11. Bourbon — Japan

The Japanese biscuit company Bourbon (no relation to the British Bourbon biscuit) makes Alfort, Lumonde, and the chocolate-covered cookie sticks called Mini Bit. Japanese biscuit engineering tends to be extremely fine and texture-focused, which is what gives Bourbon its loyal export following.

What makes a biscuit brand worth knowing?

Three things tend to mark out the brands above from supermarket-fill biscuits:

  1. A signature product. Lotus has Biscoff. McVitie's has the digestive. Arnott's has Tim Tam. The brand is built around a hero biscuit, not a sea of similar SKUs.
  2. Geographic identity. Each of the brands above is from somewhere specific. The biscuit aisle is one of the few places in modern food where geography still matters, and tasting a Belgian speculoos next to a Scottish shortbread next to an Argentine alfajor is a kind of edible passport stamp.
  3. Decades of consistency. Almost every brand on this list is more than fifty years old. Biscuits reward patience — recipes settle, factories optimise, and the products that survive a century are the ones built right.

Where to buy them

Many of these brands now ship internationally, but availability is wildly uneven country-to-country. Biscuit Brand exists to close that gap: you can explore biscuits on Biscuit Brand from sellers around the world, or browse our global biscuit guide for more discoveries beyond the names above.

For a deeper look at British brands specifically — McVitie's, Walkers, Tunnock's, Fox's, Burton's and more — see our UK biscuit brands guide.