The allergy nonprofit FARE has launched a consumer boycott of Mars Inc.’s Snickers over its advertising campaign that promotes the peanut-filled bars as the go-to airplane snack.
As Allergic Living reported in late June, Mars’s ad agency says the campaign, called “The Hungry Skies,” reminds passengers “to never fly without a Snickers.”
Many of our readers reacted with outrage to a campaign encouraging passengers to bring on board the allergen that is most implicated in in-flight reactions.
Now FARE (Food Allergy Research & Education) has posted a stark video to launch its boycott. The video is told from the perspective of an allergic passenger struggling to breathe during an in-flight reaction. It urges Mars to drop this ad campaign.
The boycott video says: “Mars Inc., your ad poses a serious risk. We urge you to remove it. Don’t make ‘the Hungry Skies’ the ‘deadly skies’. It then shows a hashtag to share: #BoycottSnickers.
FARE’s CEO Sung Poblete, PhD says her organization had hoped to get Mars’s cooperation to stop the ad campaign, which promotes Snickers as the solution to modern flying stresses.
In a call with the communications team for Mars Wrigley Confectionary, she tells Allergic Living, that FARE explained its concerns. Poblete asked them to abandon “The Hungry Skies” campaign “since it is at best insensitive and at worst dangerous to those flying with peanut allergies.” FARE also sent a letter to Mars executives that expanded on in-flight allergy issues.
The Mars communications team came back saying they were sticking with the campaign as booked (in 30 countries). They will, however, add a disclaimer on the video ad, asking passengers to “obey the instructions of the flight attendants.”
Snickers Boycott: Why and How
Poblete says that “putting the onus on the flight attendants when they have so many responsibilities is just a non-starter.” That’s why her team decided they needed to start the boycott – in the name of in-flight allergy safety.
Allergic Living reached out to Mars for comment about the boycott and reconsidering the ad campaign. A Mars spokesperson said: “We have met with FARE and share in their belief that everyone should be able to travel safely. Passengers should always follow the instructions of cabin crew, including refraining from eating peanut products when asked, and we are in the process of updating the text in our campaign content to make this even clearer.”
He added that “at Mars, we take allergens seriously and the safety and well-being of our consumers will always be our number one priority.”
Poblete says FARE has nothing against promoting peanut products in general. However, “an airplane is a really unique environment. There is no emergency room at 36,000 feet in the air.”
Allergic Living supports the Snickers boycott due to the in-flight concerns. There are already allergen risks from smears on tray tables, seatbacks and seat pockets. Our concern with this campaign is increasing exposure risks.
But how can consumers boycott when they may already avoid Snickers because of ingredients such as peanuts, milk, eggs and soy?
Poblete says the “allergy allies” – the friends and families of the 33 million who live with food allergies in the United States – can take action with their buying choices.
Secondly, she points out that Mars has many famous brands in its portfolio, and consumers can also choose to avoid more of them. These include Skittles, Milky Way, Twix, M&M’s – and even leading pet food brands.
As Mars hasn’t responded to the in-flight allergy concerns so far, “the only way to get that done is to hit them where it hurts,” says Poblete. “And there’s one group nobody wants to get angry – and that’s the food allergy moms.”
Snickers and In-Flight Burden
In her initial article on the Snickers campaign, Allergic Living airlines correspondent Lianne Mandelbaum called Mars’s advertising approach tone deaf to these allergic times. She expressed concern that a big campaign like this “could influence the behavior of millions of travelers.”
Mandelbaum is the founder of Nonutraveler.com and the leading advocate for food allergy and airline travel. In her research, she has found a lack of education among flight crews about the seriousness of anaphylaxis. Nor are U.S. flight crews trained to help in a severe allergic reaction.
“Relying on individual crew members’ knowledge and mood for food allergy safety is a huge burden on the allergic passenger,” Mandelbaum told me. “Encouraging millions of flyers to choose Snickers will only compound this burden.”
On exposure concerns, Mandelbaum notes the dangers of in-flight cross-contamination in seating areas and on tray tables. “Cleaning up past contamination quickly is a challenge, let alone addressing increased peanut residue because of the messaging of the Snickers campaign.”
These are already anxious times for those flying with food allergies. In 2023, Northwestern University’s Center for Food Allergy & Asthma Research (CFAAR) released data on a global survey on food allergies and air travel. It found two-thirds of the 4,700 participants reported “a lot” of food-related in-flight anxiety.
When it comes to allergic reactions in the skies, the CFAAR survey found that most involved peanuts, followed by tree nuts. Given that data, Mandelbaum echoes Poblete on the trouble with the Snickers “Hungry Skies” promotion.
“This campaign is at best irresponsible, at worse, dangerous for those traveling with peanut allergies,” she says.
In-Flight Allergy Emergencies
Mandelbaum also raises that in the U.S., airplane emergency medical kits are currently only required to carry epinephrine in a vial. Allergic Living has covered several instances where that has been a big concern for medical professionals responding urgently to anaphylactic reactions.
Yet some like Dr. Mikhail Varshavski, who assisted a passenger suffering first-time anaphylaxis, have had the chilling experience of needing to troubleshoot the correct dosage.
As a nurse who has stepped up for seven in-flight medical emergencies over the years, Poblete can relate. One was for a passenger having anaphylaxis to nuts, and all the kit offered was a vial and syringe that required calculating the dose. Fortunately, another passenger offered up an epinephrine auto-injector.
Poblete was taken aback by the situation. “Because if I hadn’t been on board, who would be administering the epinephrine to this individual who needed it right away?”
Knowing the urgency of such moments, plus how many people fly with food allergies, Poblete sees the Snickers campaign having potentially “dangerous consequences for those with peanut allergies.”
Can a boycott bring about change? That will depend on the food allergy moms and dads, the patients – and their allies. So share FARE’s video and this article, the hashtag #BoycottSnickers, and tag Mars in social posts. FARE suggests to “show them the faces and voices behind the severity of allergies they’re ignoring.”
Also: send a comment to Mars here about the impact for those flying with peanut/nut allergies.
Related Reading:
Nuts on Planes: from Jack Fowler’s Scare to Flying with Snickers
The Trouble with Airline Meals and Food Allergies
Essential Food Allergy Flying Tips
DOT Rules in Favor of Food Allergy Pre-Boarding Rights
