Quaker Oats mentioned Tuesday that its Aunt Jemima model pancake combine and syrup shall be renamed Pearl Milling Firm. Aunt Jemima merchandise will proceed to be bought till June, when the packaging will formally change over.
Quaker Oats, a division of PepsiCo Inc., had introduced final June that it will retire the Aunt Jemima model, saying the character’s origins are “based mostly on a racial stereotype.” The smiling Aunt Jemima brand was impressed by the nineteenth century “mammy” minstrel character, a Black lady content material to serve her white masters. A former slave, Nancy Inexperienced, turned the primary face of the pancake merchandise in 1890.
Quaker Oats purchased the Aunt Jemima model in 1925 and had up to date the emblem over time in an effort to take away the unfavorable stereotypes. However within the cultural reckoning that adopted final summer time’s Black Lives Matter protests, Quaker determined to vary the title altogether. Different manufacturers, like Uncle Ben’s rice, adopted.
Quaker mentioned Pearl Milling Firm was based in 1888 in St. Joseph, Missouri, and was the originator of self-rising pancake combine. Whereas the model shall be new to retailer cabinets, the containers and bottles of syrup will nonetheless have the acquainted purple packaging of Aunt Jemima.
Quaker mentioned it sought enter from prospects, workers and exterior cultural specialists because it developed the brand new model title.
Quaker mentioned it’s also donating $1 million to teams that empower Black ladies and ladies as a part of the Pearl Milling Firm rollout.
