Political correctness has reared its head even in the cookie aisle, where redesigned packaging graphics on the colorful box of Mondelēz International’s Nabisco-brand Barnum’s Animals Crackers note a “NEW LOOK, Same Great Taste!”
The venerable kid’s snack, which reportedly has been around for 116 years, features new front-and-back-panel graphics depicting a zebra, elephant, lion, giraffe, and gorilla wandering freely. Gone are the boxcar cages that held the animals in the iconic box’s previous graphics. Those graphics, and the product’s name itself, emanated from the Ringling Brothers and Barnum & Bailey Circus, which ceased operations in 2017, reportedly from a combination of weakening sales, high operating costs, and pressure from People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or PETA.
