Bamba debuted the new female Bamba mascot in a video posted to YouTube on Thursday.
It features a group of children trying to guess what a girl Baby Bamba will look like. Some children guess that she will be a different color, while one boy says she will be small, like his sister.
A narrator explains that the Bamba snacks will be exactly the same and that only the picture on the outside will change.
“Because inside, we’re all the same,” says a little girl. The new Bamba bambina is then revealed: a copy of the Bamba baby, but with hair (he has none) in pigtails and a pink T-shirt (he is shirtless).
The snack, which is produced by the Osem company, is ubiquitous children’s fare in Israel. No birthday party or holiday gathering for kids would be complete in Israel without Bamba.
Bamba is available in the US through such retailers as Trader Joe’s, Walmart and Amazon.
Recent research, which garnered much attention in the US, showed that Israeli children are much less likely than Americans to develop peanut allergies because they eat so much Bamba, which exposes them to small amounts of peanut flavoring and helps build an immunity.
It’s too early to know whether this limited edition Baby Bamb-ette will strike a chord with Israelis, particularly children, who enjoy video clips of Baby Bamba singing and dancing online – some of which have garnered more than 20 million views on YouTube. But it seems likely in the current climate that Israelis can find a place in their snack cabinets for mascots of all genders.