Your animal crackers are now 100% cage free

By Melissa Locker

August 21, 2018

If you’ve ever stopped halfway through a carton of animal crackers to bemoan the fate of the illustrated animals on the box, good news. Those cartoon animals are now 100% cage-free.

That’s right: Your second or third favorite Nabisco cookie is free of the facsimile of animal cruelty. Mondelez International, the parent company of Nabisco, has redesigned the packaging of its Barnum’s Animals Crackers, setting those imaginary circus animals free from their imaginary bars, AP reports.

Nabisco has been making Barnum’s Animals crackers since 1902, and this represents the first major redesign aside from a few limited-time special editions. The move came after a two-year campaign by the People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, which called for a redesign and noted the “public’s swelling opposition to the exploitation of animals used for entertainment.”

Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey, which gave the animal crackers their name, removed elephants from its show in 2016 after pressure from PETA and other groups, before folding entirely in 2017. Now that the folks at PETA have set the illustrated circus animals free, they are setting their sites on freeing all circus animals.

 
 

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