Aunt Jemima retires stereotype, secures new name Pearl Milling Co.
(CNN) — Quaker Oats is releasing a new name and logo for its Aunt Jemima products, finally retiring the racist stereotype that has adorned its pancake mixes and syrups for decades.
The name “Aunt Jemima,” long criticized as a racist caricature of a Black woman stemming from slavery, will be replaced with the Pearl Milling Co. name and logo on the former brand’s new packaging, according to parent company PepsiCo.
“We are starting a new day with Pearl Milling Co.,” a PepsiCo spokesperson said. “A new day rooted in the brand’s historic beginnings and its mission to create moments that matter at the breakfast table.”
The new brand is scheduled to launch in June, a year after the company announced the change. Aunt Jemima was one of several food brands — including Uncle Ben’s, Cream of Wheat and Mrs. Butterworth’s — to announce redesigns as protests against systemic racism erupted across the United States this summer.
The story behind Pearl Milling Co.
The Pearl Milling Co. was the late-19th-century business that created the original ready-made pancake mix, according to PepsiCo. It was founded in 1888 by Chris L. Rutt.
Rutt named the original company after “Old Aunt Jemima,” an 1875 song from a minstrel show that featured performers in blackface who wore aprons and bandana headbands.
The new Pearl Milling Co. brand logo replaces the Aunt Jemima image with what appears to be a 19th century watermill, where flour was ground at the time. The new logo’s red, white and yellow color scheme matches the colors that were used on Aunt Jemima’s packaging.
“This name is a nod to where our delicious products began before becoming a family-favorite breakfast staple,” PepsiCo said of its new Pearl Milling Co. branding. “While the Aunt Jemima brand was updated over the years in a manner intended to remove racial stereotypes, it has not progressed enough to appropriately reflect the dignity, respect and warmth that we stand for today.”
PepsiCo said it conducted extensive market research to come up with its new brand name.
“Quaker worked with consumers, employees, external cultural and subject-matter experts, and diverse agency partners to gather broad perspectives and ensure the new brand was developed with inclusivity in mind,” the company said.
News of Aunt Jemima’s rebranding in June started a domino effect among food brands with racist or otherwise controversial mascots. Within hours of the announcement, the Mars food company announced it would do away with the brand name and logo for Uncle Ben’s rice, eventually rebranding itself as Ben’s Original.
Conagra-owned syrup maker Mrs. Butterworth’s, whose humanoid bottle shape looks like a woman of color when filled with maple syrup, announced they were changing the brand’s name on the same day. And one day later, Cream of Wheat’s parent, B&G Foods, said it was doing away with its Black chef logo, which was based on a dim-witted, blackface minstrel show caricature seen in early 20th century Cream of Wheat ads.
PepsiCo said Pearl Milling Co. will also announce an annual $1 million commitment to empower and uplift Black girls and women in the coming weeks. This investment is in addition to PepsiCo’s $400 million, five-year commitment to advance and uplift the Black community, the company said.
Pearl Milling is inviting the public to visit its website and nominate nonprofit organizations for an opportunity to receive grants to further that mission.
“The commitment we’re making is a reflection of our broader PepsiCo values of diversity and inclusion and support of the Black community,” PepsiCo said.
How will the public react?
It’s tough to gauge the reaction to Aunt Jemima’s new branding, said Apex Marketing Group president Eric Smallwood, who says the reception for the new branding will depend on Pepsi’s rollout plan.
“It’s a little different because you’re changing the name of a brand,” he said after previewing an image of the trademarked logo. “If you just saw it by itself, you’d have no idea it was Aunt Jemima, which had its tie longstanding with pancakes and pancake mix. This doesn’t.”
Allen Adamson, co-founder of New York-based branding consultancy Metaforce, says the new name of Pearl Milling is a strong choice.
“The name has craft and artesian imagery, a key for success in the food category,” he said. “It is also importantly authentic, as it was the product’s original name. Younger consumers are keenly interested in authenticity.”
Howard University Afro-American Studies professor Greg Carr says it appears PepsiCo is trying to strike a balance between continuing to market a popular product while scrubbing every vestige of racism from that product’s new branding.
“In a way, a change to Pearl Milling Co. could be interpreted as a form of corporate mea culpa for an original sin it did not commit,” Carr told CNN Business. But, he added, “the market will ultimately determine whether this will be a win for PepsiCo.”