Animal crackers aren’t just for kids anymore. Good Zebra's intricate, tattoo-inspired cookies, add protein and remove refined sugar from the classic treat, all with the intention of creating a better-for-you, satisfying snack for busy adults on the move.
While traveling internationally most of the week as the chief marketing officer of a large footwear brand, Erika Szychowski realized that all packaged food convenient for travel had refined sugar in the ingredients. In fact, finding any food acceptable to take aboard (fresh produce isn’t an option) without refined sugar was nearly impossible. Despite the lack of healthy options, Szychowski knew she couldn’t be the only one seeking “portable, better for you products” and wanted to do something to address the gap in the market.
“So many people I knew wanted to start their own business if they knew what the product was,” Szychowski says, “I spent twenty-plus years of my career analyzing trends, being ahead and chasing them, and I felt this trend in food hadn’t been addressed.” But still, Szychowski wasn’t sure of her product. Never having worked in the food industry, Szychowski says she “didn’t know enough about it to be scared of it.”
Rather than invent an entirely new product, which Szychowski knew would be hard to market, she instead identified a product she could update to consumer desires. “I felt animal crackers were void of reinvention,” she says. After her research showed that animal crackers were suffering a decline in sales over the past 20 years, Szychowski decided the whimsical cookies would be the perfect food product to relaunch.
After working with food chemists to develop a recipe for the new cookies, which have 12 grams of protein per serving, Szychowski found a plant that could make molded food products and tested them until the formula was just right. Currently, vanilla, chai and lemon flavors are available, with two more flavors slated to launch soon.
Another unique facet of the animal-shaped cookies: The design. Unlike classic circus-shaped animal crackers, Szychowski freshened up the menagerie with a range of animals inspired by her brother and cousin's animal tattoos. “Circus animals of the past felt so caged, we wanted ours to be free-spirited,” Szychowski says. The so-called “spirit animals” range from the namesake zebras to unicorns, with a dragon recently added to the collection.
While food brands often launch at specialty grocery stores, Szychowski decided to take Good Zebra to e-commerce first, following the 2017 launch with shelf space in airport kiosks, specialty stores and corporate food service, with an airline partnership currently in the works. “We don’t do grocery stores,” Szychowski says, “It’s a saturated market and [grocery stores] are not a space for discovery. It’s really fun to discover things at the airport.”
So far, discoverers of the cookies have written in unsolicited praise for the brand, surprised at how much they taste like animal crackers, and celebrities like Jillian Michaels have latched on as early Good Zebra fans.
Good Zebra cookies are available at GoodZebra.com, starting at $15.99 for a four-pack.
