The big problem with the animal crackers “cage free” box redesign
The new art doesn’t address any of the underlying issues about ethics, exploitation, and corporate greed.
Nabisco’s animal crackers are a staple of American snack food aisles, and the box — a red-and-yellow rectangle featuring brightly colored circus animals cavorting in cages — is instantly recognizable. Just last week, though, Nabisco’s parent company Mondelez International announced it will change the design of the box. Instead of depicting the animals behind the bars of a circus wagon, it will show them striding free along a savannah.
The change is the result of a recent successful lobbying effort by PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals...)
Though the change is symbolic, it stirs up some mixed feelings for me ethics-wise as well as personally — because the designer of the previous box was my great-grandfather’s brother.
Uncle Sydney died in 1989 at age 99, two years before I was born, so I never got to meet him, but I believe his design wasn’t about animal cruelty; he was thinking about joy...