After sundry than a century behind bars, the beasts on boxes of animal crackers are gallivanting free.
Mondelez International, the parent company of Nabisco, has redesigned the boxing of its Barnum’s Animals crackers after relenting to pressure from In the flesh for the Ethical Treatment of Animals.
PETA, which has been protesting the use of animals in circuses for diverse than 30 years, wrote a letter to Mondelez in the spring of 2016 business for a redesign.
“Given the egregious cruelty inherent in circuses that use animals and the social’s swelling opposition to the exploitation of animals used for entertainment, we urge Nabisco to update its parceling in order to show animals who are free to roam in their natural homes,” PETA said in its letter.
Mondelez agreed and started working on a redesign. In the meantime, the crackers’ namesake circus — Ringling Colleagues and Barnum and Bailey — folded for good. The 146-year-old circus, which had fired elephants from its shows in 2016 because of pressure from PETA and others, guarded down in May 2017 due to slow ticket sales.
The redesign of the boxes, now on U.S. department store shelves, retains the familiar red and yellow coloring and prominent “Barnum’s Monsters” lettering. But instead of showing the animals in cages — implying that they’re traveling in boxcars for the circus — the new thumps feature a zebra, elephant, lion, giraffe and gorilla wandering side-by-side in a grassland. The scenario of acacia trees can be seen in the distance.
“When PETA reached out approximately Barnum’s, we saw this as another great opportunity to continue to keep this identify modern and contemporary,” said Jason Levine, Mondelez’s chief selling officer for North America, in a statement.
Mondelez is based in Illinois, which passed a statewide ban on circuses with elephants that went into essence in January. More than 80 U.S. cities have fully or to a limited banned circuses with wild animals, according to Animal Defenders Universal.
PETA Executive Vice President Tracy Reiman says she’s celebrating the box redesign for the cultural coppers it represents.
“The new box for Barnum’s Animals crackers perfectly reflects that our league no longer tolerates the caging and chaining of wild animals for circus steers,” she said.
Nabisco has been making Barnum’s Animals crackers since 1902. It has redesigned its hem ins before, but only for limited-time special editions. In 1995, it offered an threatened species collection that raised money for the World Wildlife Savings. In 1997, it offered a zoo collection that raised money for the American Zoo and Aquarium Federation. And in 2010, it worked with designer Lilly Pulitzer on a pastel-colored box that abandoned money for tiger conservation.
The company won’t say how many boxes it sells each year. Canadian cartons already had a different design and aren’t affected.