WAFFLE DAY CELEBRATED ON A WEDNESDAY

That is what managing director Jan Røsholm of the Foundation Elektronikkbransjen says, who in 2010 sent out his first press release on the occasion of Waffle Day.

– Since then, this has become an annual tradition, and our sales figures show that the iron-baked pastry remains consistently popular. Many good forces have worked together to make this a Norwegian day of celebration, which has also been added to the calendar, says Røsholm.

Figures from the media monitoring tool Retriever show that Waffle Day was rarely mentioned in Norwegian media before 2010. That year, the Norwegian supplier Wilfa placed an advertisement in the trade magazine Elektronikkbransjen, with this message:

– 25 March is the official Waffle Day in Sweden, and we think it should be in Norway too!

149,000 irons last year

This was followed up by the industry association with a press release, which has since been sent out every year, and the Facebook page vaffeldagennorge.

– When we mark Waffle Day for the 17th year in a row, we hope and believe that customers will experience the smell of waffles when they visit the industry's stores. We are a waffle-eating people, who last year bought 149,000 waffle irons. Since 1987, 6.92 million waffle irons have been sold in Norway, an average of just under 180,000 each year, says Røsholm.

Sales records were set in the pandemic years 2020 and 2021, with 320,000 and 420,000 waffle irons. In both of the following two years, 183,000 waffle irons were sold, before there was a slight upturn in 2024 to 202,000 irons sold.

– When we could register a decline to 149,000 waffle irons in 2025, we believe it is due to nothing other than that many in recent years have purchased irons they are still using, says Røholm at the Foundation Elektronikkbransjen.

Old tradition

Waffle Day has since 2010 become a sure sign of spring, but the history goes much further back.

The Annunciation, also known as Lady Day, is a church feast day in memory of the angel Gabriel coming to the Virgin Mary nine months before Christmas Eve with the message that she would give birth to God's son. In Sweden, the day was also called Vårfrudagen, and this is where Waffle Day comes in. The story goes that Vårfrudagen sounded like Våffeldagen, and it became a day to be marked, probably also because there was greater access to eggs and milk after the winter.

The first waffle irons were developed as early as the 1300s in Germany and the Netherlands. These were forged irons that made large and square waffles, what we today know as Belgian waffles. The waffles spread in Europe and to the USA, and in 1869 Cornelius Swarthout of Troy patented a waffle iron on August 24, which has become the American Waffle Day. In 1911, the first electric waffle iron came on the market.