Kellogg's Joins Growing List of Companies to Drop Support of Ringling Bros.

Kellogg’s Joins Growing List of Companies to Drop Support of Ringling Bros.

Family-Friendly Food Brand Withdraws Circus Contest Prize, Earns Tasty Vegan Chocolate Thank-You From PETA

For Immediate Release:
August 5, 2015

Contact:
David Perle 202-483-7382

Battle Creek, Mich. –

A box of delicious elephant-shaped vegan chocolates is on its way to Kellogg’s as a thank-you from PETA for the company’s recent decision to stop promoting its Mother’s™ Cookies Circus Instant Win Game—which initially offered tickets to the notoriously cruel Ringling Bros. circus as a grand prize. After hearing from PETA about the beatings, chronic confinement, and abuse elephants and other animals endure under the big top, Kellogg’s replaced the circus-related prizes with alternative prizes of equal monetary value and has removed the promotion from in-store displays and online.

With this move, Kellogg’s joins Denny’s, Harris Teeter, HOPSports, Lukoil, MasterCard, Sears, and many other companies that have dropped support of Ringling following discussions with PETA—whose motto reads, in part, that “animals are not ours to use for entertainment.”

“Kellogg’s is joining the ranks of dozens of other forward-thinking companies in sending the message that forcing animals into frightening and painful situations for human amusement is never acceptable,” says PETA Foundation Deputy Director Brittany Peet. “PETA is calling on others to follow their compassionate example now.”

PETA has gathered extensive video and photographic evidence showing circus trainers and handlers as they jab elephants, including babies, with bullhooks (weapons that resemble a fireplace poker with a sharp metal hook on one end). Ringling keeps elephants, tigers, and other animals on the road for up to 50 weeks a year, and when they aren’t being forced to perform—under the threat of punishment—they’re usually shackled in chains or locked away in cramped cages.

Thanks to growing opposition to circuses that beat elephants into performing, Ringling recently pledged to phase out all its elephant acts by 2018. However, PETA believes that three years is far too long for the elephants who endure extreme abuse every single day and is urging Ringling to end its elephant acts immediately.

For more information, please click here or visit PETA.org.