‘You go woke and become a joke’: Aunt Jemima’s new name Pearl Milling Company is panned as people say it sounds like a gravel mining firm after PepsiCo scrapped the ‘racist’ pancake syrup icon amid BLM protests

The new branding for Aunt Jemima pancake mix and syrup will be Pearl Milling Company, parent company PepsiCo said on Tuesday, eight months after announcing a re-brand over racial concerns about the character.

The new packaging will appear on store shelves in June. Products with the Aunt Jemima name, but without the character’s image, will continue to be available until then, the company said.

Last June, at the height of protests over the death of George Floyd, PepsiCo announced that it would drop the name and brand image of Aunt Jemima from its products, following criticism that the character is a racist caricature.

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