The “Coon” cheese brand will be dumped by its Canadian owners after a complaint by an aboriginal activist that it is racist.
In a letter to aboriginal activist and businessman Stephen Hagan, multinational conglomerate Saputo said the company has “decided to retire the Coon brand name”.
Saputo CEO Lino Saputo Jr — the grandson of company founder Giuseppe – wrote to Dr Hagan on Friday morning informing him of the decision.
“We performed a careful and diligent review of this sensitive situation,’’ he said.
“We wanted to ensure we listened to all the concerns surrounding the COON brand name, while also considering comments from consumers who cherish the brand and recognise the origin of its founder Edward William Coon, which they feel connected to.
“After thorough consideration, Saputo has decided to retire the COON brand name. As part of this process of transformation, we commit to keep our stakeholders informed as we move forward.
“At this time, we are working to develop a new brand name that will honour the brand-affinity felt by our valued consumers while aligning with current attitudes and perspectives.”
Dr Hagan has lobbied for more than 20 years for a change to the Coon Cheese brand – which its Australian manufacturers have long argued was named after American Edward William Coon, who in 1926 patented the “ripening process” for the original product.
It comes as a growing list of products and even sporting teams rethink their names to appease Black Lives Matter activism.
Saputo said it re-examined the Coon cheese name as part of its corporate stance against racism.
The softening in the hardline stance against changing the name by previous owners came when Saputo — which, in 2015, bought out Lion Dairy and Drinks — received a written appeal to the Canadian parent company last month from Dr Hagan.
Earlier this week, in an email to Dr Hagan, and echoed in a statement on Thursday from Saputo Dairy Australia, a company spokesman thanked Dr Hagan for raising his concerns on “such an important topic”. “One of our basic principles as an organisation is to respect individuals and groups of all backgrounds and to not condone discrimination in any shape or form,’’ the email says.
“This guiding belief applies to our brand names as well. We would never tolerate any behaviour, activity or branding that goes against these values.
Dr Hagan wrote to Saputo’s Montreal-based chief executive, Lino Saputo Jr, last month, lobbying him to change the name.
Dr Hagan, one of Australia’s first Indigenous diplomats, had unsuccessfully tried to force the dumping of the Coon brand in 1999 with a complaint to the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission. ‘Should be consigned to the past’
In his email to Mr Saputo, Dr Hagan said Coon cheese should be “consigned to the past of outdated racist brands’’.
“People of colour, especially First Nations people in Australia, are offended by that brand name in use in this country since November 1935, as it is a celebrated term used by our oppressors — many of which are found in government, corporate and civic leader ranks — to demean and subjugating us as a race,’’ he wrote.
Saputo replied that it was proud to be a recent signatory to the “Business Council of Canada’s statement denouncing racism”, which followed worldwide “Black Lives Matter protests sparked by the police killing of African-American George Floyd in the US in May.
The protests have led to global calls for the dumping of product brand names with racial overtones and removal of statues and monuments celebrating historical figures linked to slavery and colonialism.
In Australia confectionery deemed racist and recently removed from shelves include Chicos and Red Skins.
The word “coon” was an offensive slur against African-Americans that emerged in the US in the 1800s and is believed to have derived from racist comparisons to raccoons.
Dr Hagan said the term has been widely used to demean Aboriginal Australians and that the brand name had been dumped in the US and other parts of the world.
He has also asked Saputo to investigate his doubts as to whether Edward Coon was actually a cheesemaker in the 1920s or a factory hand used “as a cover” for a racist brand.
“I am heartened by the feedback of Saputo management to my request to discontinue Coon as a brand for their cheese range,’’ he told The Australian.
“First Nations people and people of colour shouldn’t have to tolerate the visual ugliness of Coon cheese products positioned prominently in the dairy aisles in supermarkets.
“I hope conservative Australia accepts the decision and not allow their recalcitrant stance to the contrary define them as bigots holding fervently on to a relic of a racist past.”
Dr Hagan famously led a decade-long legal fight to have the racist term “nigger” removed from the ES “Nigger” Brown stand in Toowoomba, named after the city’s first international rugby league player. It is believed the nickname was given because of his fair hair.
While he lost the legal fight, the then Bligh government pressured the ground’s trust in 2008 into not retaining the term on an intended plaque in an upgrade after the stand was demolished.
