Food and beverages company PepsiCo has decided to remove the image from its subsidiary The Quaker Oats Company’s brand Aunt Jemima packaging.

As part of this announcement, the company’s new packaging without the image will be available during the fourth quarter of this year.

Quaker Foods North America vice-president and chief marketing officer Kristin Kroepfl said: “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.

“We recognise 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.”

In addition to removing the image, the company is planning to change the name of the brand. This will happen after the changes of the first phase of packaging are implemented.

The Aunt Jemima brand has existed for more than 130 years.

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Kroepfl added: “We acknowledge the brand has not progressed enough to appropriately reflect the confidence, warmth and dignity that we would like it to stand for today. We are starting by removing the image and changing the name.

“We will continue the conversation by gathering diverse perspectives from both our organisation and the Black community to further evolve the brand and make it one everyone can be proud to have in their pantry.”