Zoo Pals Are Back And Selling Out

News

By RC Staff

04 September 2023

If you’re a proud Gen-Z kid, you probably have some fond memories of falling asleep watching Nickelodeon. In between being woken up by “Low Rider” and “FUSHIGI” blasting at max volume, there were also ads for Zoo Pals. You know, the paper plates with animal faces? Oink oink, moo moo, et cetera. Well, Zoo Pals have been discontinued for the last few years. Who knows why they pulled them from the market in the first place, but we have good news. Hefty has revived the Zoo Pals brand, and it’s now possible to buy them online and in stores. Or at least, it would be, if the plates didn’t immediately sell out.

2023 Zoo Pals Paper Plates

Yes, Zoo Pals are alive and well in 2023. Hefty announced in August that the brand would get a second shot at life this year, and the consumer response has been overwhelming.

For the uncultured, ZooPals are a brand of paper plates with animal faces on them. You can eat your porkchops off of a pig’s snout, and fill up his ears with ketchup or cottage cheese. The designs were always popular with children, at least according to ads, and if kids are happy, then parents are happy.

Zoo Pals were discontinued in 2014. The property was left dormant for the last few years, until Reynolds filed a new trademark in February 2023. In early August, the slogan “Make Eating Fun” was also trademarked, signaling an immediate return of the brand.

Finally, the confirmation came through Hefty that Zoo Pals were really, truly, honestly coming back. Hooray! After all, being an adult sucks, but at least you can relive the fun parts of your childhood by buying cheap plastic crap.

It seems like a lot of people were excited by this news, both for their kids and themselves. The designs from the 2023 line of Zoo Pals plates are the same as from before, with slightly updated packaging, and a new coating. Theoretically, the plates are reusable, but we’re guessing most people will still end up tossing theirs.

All of this excitement led to a somewhat unexpected outcome. The new Zoo Pals plates completely sold out, everywhere. Both through online sales, and physical retailers. Zoo Pals were simply too popular to stay on the shelves, and the demand seemed to catch Hefty off guard.

Naturally, this also made for a great opportunity for resellers. No matter what product it is, if it’s popular enough to sell out at retail, it’s popular enough to resell.

And despite the scolding from diehard Zoo Pals fans, these plates made for quite a profitable flip. New Zoo Pals paper plates cost around $4 for a 15 pack, and $6 for 20. Expensive, relatively, but not enough to keep people from buying them. Speaking of which, if you think that’s too much for paper plates, check out what resellers are selling them for.

Zoo Pals Paper Plates Resell

So if people are fiending for these plates enough to buy up all the stock from retailers, how much do you think they’d pay a third-party seller to get their fix? $100? $1,000?

Don’t be silly. They are just paper plates after all, and while there are a lot people with poor impulse control and too much money out there, these plates aren’t flipping for that much. Right now, new Zoo Pals paper plates are reselling for around $20-$30 for a pack of 15.

You’re essentially multiplying your money by 5-10 times by buying these plates to flip. Immediately after the plates first went live, we saw a few sales past $50, presumably to some very desperate people. Laugh if you want, but these plates were actually quite profitable.

What do you think? Want to grab a few for personal use, or would you rather just pocket the extra money? If you want to get in on the weirder opportunities for reselling, subscribe to our newsletter. In addition to the stuff you’d expect, we also cover quirkier cooks like Neil deGrasse Tyson trading cards, Pumpkin Spice trash bags, and blood-filled vinyl records.

No matter what it is, how silly or stupid it may be; if it makes money, we’ll talk about it.