Beggin’ Strips is a brand of pet food and pet snack manufactured by Nestlé Purina PetCare.[1] The product was first manufactured by Ralston Purina.[1] The product's tagline is "Dogs Don't Know It's Not Bacon," which appeared in U.S. television commercials in the 1990s.[2][dead link] The product is manufactured to resemble bacon strips.[3]
History
Beggin' Strips were first sold in 1989. Nestlé Purina started off by selling this product in North America.[4]
The trademark bag for the product features a cartoon dog licking his chops while awaiting a treat. Drawn up in 1994, the dog was named "Hamlet." Hamlet was chosen to appear in Nestlé Purina's advertising for Beggin' Strips, and to represent the product.[7]
Purina holds an annual pet parade around the time of Mardi Gras. The Parade, originally sponsored by Purina Beggin’ Strips, and now a general Purina event, is held every year in Soulard, a historic French neighborhood in St. Louis, Missouri with over 5,000 pets and their owners in attendance.[8][9] St. Louis' Waterloo Courier also covered the Beggin' Strips Stupid Dog Contest on July 4, 1999. In prior years, the contest offered multiple monetary prizes, the grand prize being a $5,000 supply of Beggin' Strips per year and a trip to see the Late Show with David Letterman in New York.[10]
1 Currently manufactured by General Mills in the U.S. and Canada. Produced by Cereal Partners under the Nestlé brand elsewhere. 2 Brand owned by General Mills; U.S. and Canadian production rights controlled by Nestlé under license. 3 U.S. production rights owned by The Hershey Company. 4 U.S. rights and production owned by the Smarties Candy Company with a different product. 5 U.S. rights and specific trade dress owned by Nestlé; rights elsewhere owned by Associated British Foods. 6 Produced by Cereal Partners, branded as Nestlé. 7 Produced by Cereal Partners and branded as Nestlé in the U.K. and Ireland. Produced by Post Foods elsewhere. 8 Philippine production rights owned by Alaska Milk Corporation. 9 Singaporean, Malaysian and Thai production rights owned by Fraser and Neave. 10 Used only in Indonesia, Thailand, and Cambodia. 11 Used only in the Philippines. 12 U.S. production rights owned by the Ferrara Candy Company. 13NA rights and specific trade dress to all packaged coffee and other products under the Starbucks brand owned by Nestlé since 2019. 14 Brand owned by Mars, sold by Nestlé in Canada. 15 Produced by Froneri in the U.S. since 2020.
