Pepsico Inc announces re-branding of Aunt Jemima products
The Aunt Jemima brand is synonymous with pancakes and syrup, but for over 130 years, it’s also promoted a racist stereotype with the name and image they use on every product. But that is about to change.
Today, Pepsico Inc, the parent company of Quaker Oats who owns the Aunt Jemima brand, made the announcement that they will be removing the Aunt Jemima image from all of their products moving forward.
In the announcement, they stated that the new logo-less packaging should hit store shelves during the fourth quarter of this year (anywhere from October to December). The statement from the vice president and chief marketing officer of Quaker Foods North America, Kristin Kroepfl, went on to say the following:
"We recognize Aunt Jemima’s origins are based on a racial stereotype. While work has been done over the years to update the brand in a manner intended to be appropriate and respectful, we realize those changes are not enough."
But the brand’s logo is not the only thing they plan on changing; they also announced that they’ll be updating the name as well. It will be interesting to see what the new name turns out to be.
The logo and the brand name for Aunt Jemima will change later this year
The brand began in 1889 which doesn’t excuse why the name and image was chosen to begin with. The Civil War ended in 1865, but as many have known for quite some time and some are just learning, that wasn’t the end of racism and white supremacy in America.
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The fact that the brand is just changing now should tell us everything we need to know about what’s going on today.
The civil rights movement of the ’60s didn’t make the brand change anything, but the protests fighting for Black lives and people speaking out against racism have clearly made some companies nervous about what they represent.have Hopefully, this isn’t the last change we see in the coming weeks.
And Aunt Jemima might not be the only brand changing it’s name. Uncle Ben’s owner, Mars, also made a statement saying “now is the right time to evolve the Uncle Ben’s brand, including its visual brand identity, which we will do.”
What are your thoughts on the changes to the Aunt Jemima brand? What do you think the new brand name will be? Let us know in the comments below!