From Animal Crackers to Simply Animals: York classic has a new name

The company explained it was a financial decision. Retaining the use of chocolate – which spiked in price due to poor weather-and-disease related harvests in West Africa in 2024 and the tariffs imposed by the Trump Administration in 2025 – would have increased the price of a box of Stars to more than $8, according to Stauffer’s owner Meiji, a multi-national food and pharmaceutical manufacturer headquartered in Japan. Cocoa prices have dipped since November when the tariff was lifted, but, according to NPR, chocolate prices have not gone down.

The response was immediate, with a number of consumers taking to social media to express their displeasure with the decision to mess with what they believed was a tradition. To be fair, others didn’t have a problem with it.

Lost in that controversy was the company’s announcement that it had also eliminated the use of high-fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring in the cookies and had begun making them in a peanut-free facility, eliminating allergy risks.

Now, the company is changing its formula for its most venerable product: Animal Crackers. It announced that it would eliminate high-fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring in the recipe and produce the snack in Stauffer’s peanut-free facility in Spring Garden Township.

Sabetha Wells, Stauffer’s vice president for safety and quality, said the change was made after listening to consumers and adapting the product “to more align with families today.” The crackers, she said, retain the same taste and crunch.

At the same time, the company announced it would change the product’s name.

The snack formerly known as Animal Crackers will now be called Simply Animals.

The venerable snack was re-branded, Wells said, “as a celebration of what the product has always been,” a simple product in the simple shape of animals.

The company has slowly rolled out the new sobriquet, selling the snack formerly known as Animal Crackers in a limited number of retail outlets, including Weis Markets and Walmart, since 2024 so the company could get feedback from consumers. The response, Wells said, has been positive, particularly the decision to eliminate high-fructose corn syrup and artificial coloring from the crackers.

Among the feedback Stauffer’s has received from consumers, collected as a part of a promotion, was “very good snack that the kids loved” and “a healthy option to snacking.” One consumer wrote, “They still had great flavor. The chocolate ones were just as good.” Another wrote, “Kid tested, mom approved.”

Simply Animals will go national in April to coincide with National Animal Cracker Day, April 18. (Yes, there is a National Animal Cracker Day.)

Animal Crackers’ heritage

The snack formerly known as Animal Crackers dates to 1871 when company founder David F. Stauffer began making them in York. The company was the first American manufacturer of the animal-shaped, biscuit-style cracker, basing it on a popular snack in England.

Over the past 155 years, the snack formerly known as Animal Crackers was branded, simply, Animal Crackers. They are celebrated in popular culture. The Marx Brothers made a movie titled “Animal Crackers.” Shirley Temple sang about them. Duke Ellington recorded a song titled “I’m Just Wild About Animal Crackers” in 1926.

“Simply Animals is the next chapter of classic animal crackers and cookies families have loved for generations,” according to Meiji America’s website. “The familiar taste, crunch, and playful animal shapes will remain the same.”

The packaging has changed to include a cartoon mascot, Bryson the Bear, which the company describes as “a friendly face you’ll see on Simply Animals packaging and in our stories. He’s there to add a little extra fun and imagination to snack time, helping make the experience more enjoyable for kids and families.”

Bryson’s backstory is that he is from Staufferville and that “he’s an adventurous and fun character” bringing snack time and story time together, Wells said.

The company has commissioned the production of a children’s book, Bryson’s Rocket Riddles, to accompany the unveiling of the rebranded snack. The company will donate 20 percent of the proceeds from the book’s sales to Reading is Fundamental.

Are they crackers or cookies?

Animal crackers have sparked debate for ages – are they crackers or cookies?

According to Wikipedia, quoting an unavailable archive of the Stauffer website, they are classified as crackers because they are made with a layered dough, a characteristic of crackers. But they have a sweetness that is most associated with cookies.

They are both, Wells said. The classic and cocoa-flavored versions are considered crackers, and those glazed with a cinnamon glaze are cookies.

The controversy has attracted academic scrutiny. Mark Eberly, a biology professor at Fort Hays State University in Kansas, wrote a paper defining taxonomic classifications for animal crackers and cookies. The witty satire begins, “Animal cookies, animal crackers, and related taxa are known to most people in the United States. However, there is substantial confusion as to which of the baked critters are cookies and which are crackers.” Biology nerds can read the paper here.

There is one aspect of animal crackers that is not up for debate – the proper way to eat one.

The only acceptable manner of consuming an animal crack is to start with biting its head off, as the late Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne would.

Wells agreed it’s not an issue.

“That’s pretty characteristic, mostly in my house,” she said. “My 7-year-old, that’s how she eats them, for sure.”

USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

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