It was the summer of racial reckoning, and PepsiCo—amid a social media backlash that called out Aunt Jemima’s branding as racist—publicly commit

The inside story behind Aunt Jemima’s new name

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2024-05-05 23:30:02

It was the summer of racial reckoning, and PepsiCo—amid a social media backlash that called out Aunt Jemima’s branding as racist—publicly committed to changing the brand and removing its logo.

After examining hundreds of names, PepsiCo yesterday announced that it was rebranding Aunt Jemima as Pearl Milling Company—the name of the enterprise, founded in 1888, which originated the self-rising pancake mix that would later become known as Aunt Jemima. (Quaker Oats signed the contract to buy the Aunt Jemima brand in 1925.)

Kristin Kroepfl, chief marketing officer for Quaker Foods North America, told Fortune that the new name “reflects the dignity, the respect, and the warmth that we stand for.”

But it also appears to have been the safe choice, says Josh Gerben, an attorney specializing in trademark law: “There is no potential controversy with the name.”

That is, of course, exactly what Quaker was going for after grappling for decades with a brand that had overt ties to American slavery. Kroepfl said the company looked at several different naming categories, such as those that brought to mind expertise, a sense of place, or an occasion. Her team found that consumers responded most favorably to names linked to female personas or names that tied back to the product’s history.