After 116 years behind bars, Animal Crackers have been officially uncaged.
According to the Associated Press, Nabisco has opened the cage for the lion, polar bear, elephant, and gorilla that has decorated the packaging of its Barnum’s Animals classic cookies for more than a century.
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Nabisco’s animal crackers to break out of their cages in new box design after pressure from PETA. //t.co/crVAll6Ubo
— The Associated Press (@AP) August 21, 2018
The new box, which is now available in stores, features a lion, zebra, elephant, giraffe, and gorilla roaming freely in a grassland. The packaging retains its red and yellow coloring and “Barnum’s Animals” lettering.
The change to the classic design comes after the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals (PETA) urged Nabisco to do away with the bars in an effort to continue their push of protesting the use of animals in circuses.
“Given the egregious cruelty inherent in circuses that use animals and the public’s swelling opposition to the exploitation of animals used for entertainment, we urge Nabisco to update its packaging in order to show animals who are free to roam in their natural habitats,” PETA said in a letter to Nabisco in 2016.
According to Jason Levine, Mondelez International’s chief marketing officer for North America, Nabisco immediately heard PETA’s calls.
“When PETA reached out about Barnum’s, we saw this as another great opportunity to continue to keep this brand modern and contemporary,” Levine said in a statement.
PETA is praising the company for the introduction of the new free-range animal crackers.
“The new box for Barnum’s Animal Crackers perfectly reflects that our society no longer tolerates the caging and chaining of wild animals for circus shows,” PETA executive vice president Tracy Reiman told USA Today. “PETA is celebrating this redesign, just as we’ve celebrated the end of Ringling Bros. circus and the introduction of animal-circus bans across the U.S.”
This is not the first time that the Barnum’s Animals classic crackers have undergone a redesign. In 1955, Nabisco temporarily redesigned the packaging to offer an endangered species collection that raised money for the World Wildlife Fund. A zoo collection was offered in 1997 to raise funds for the American Zoo and Aquarium Association, and in 2010, a pastel-colored box raising money for tiger conservation made a brief debut.
