After retiring the pancake mascot Aunt Jemima for good, Quaker Oats has announced a new name to sell their brand of breakfast goods: Pearl Milling Company.
“Quaker Oats said Tuesday that its Aunt Jemima brand pancake mix and syrup will be renamed Pearl Milling Company. Aunt Jemima products will continue to be sold until June, when the packaging will officially change over,” reports ABC.
“Quaker said Pearl Milling Company was founded in 1888 in St. Joseph, Missouri, and was the originator of self-rising pancake mix. While the brand will be new to store shelves, the boxes and bottles of syrup will still have the familiar red packaging of Aunt Jemima,” the report continued. “Quaker said it sought input from customers, employees and external cultural experts as it developed the new brand name.”
Quaker announced in June of last year that it would be retiring the famous brand following the Black Lives Matter protests that spread across the nation following the death of George Floyd at the hands of a white Minneapolis police officer.
“As we work to make progress toward racial equality through several initiatives, we also must take a hard look at our portfolio of brands and ensure they reflect our values and meet our consumers’ expectations,” Quaker said in a statement. “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.”
Shortly after Quaker announced that it would be changing the name of Aunt Jemima, the company Dreyer’s said it would be renaming its famous Eskimo Pie to something less “derogatory.” In October of last year, the company revealed the new name to be Edy’s Pie. Dreyer denounced the “Eskimo Pie” name as “derogatory” while vowing to change it in the name of “racial equality.”
“We are committed to being a part of the solution on racial equality, and recognize the term is derogatory,” the company said. “This move is part of a larger review to ensure our company and brands reflect our people values.”
In early 2020, the butter company Land O’ Lakes announced that it would be removing the famed “Butter Maiden” — a Native American woman named Mia — from its packaging, a logo designed by Native American artist Patrick DesJarlait. In an article for The Washington Post, DesJarlait’s son, Robert, said his father crafted the logo to “foster a sense of Indian pride.”
“With the redesign, my father made Mia’s Native American connections more specific,” he wrote. “He changed the beadwork designs on her dress by adding floral motifs that are common in Ojibwe art. He added two points of wooded shoreline to the lake that had often been depicted in the image’s background. It was a place any Red Lake tribal citizen would recognize as the Narrows, where Lower Red Lake and Upper Red Lake meet.”
Related: Dreyer’s Unveils New Name For ‘Derogatory’ Eskimo Pie