Who Owns Pearl Milling Company?

The Pearl Milling Company was founded in 1888 in St. Joseph, Missouri, by Chris L. Rutt and Charles G. Underwood. Rutt, a journalist, and Underwood, a mill operator, created the world's first self-rising pancake mix by combining pre-measured amounts of flour, corn meal, lime phosphate, and salt in a single package, eliminating the need for home cooks to measure and mix individual dry ingredients. This innovation dramatically simplified the preparation of pancakes and represented a significant advance in convenience food.

Rutt and Underwood named their product "Aunt Jemima" in 1889, inspired by a minstrel show song called "Old Aunt Jemima" that Rutt had seen performed at a local theater. The Aunt Jemima character, depicted as a smiling Black woman in a headscarf, was based on the racist "Mammy" stereotype prevalent in post-Civil War American culture. The character was used to market the pancake mix as a product associated with Southern hospitality and cooking.

The Pearl Milling Company was sold to the R.T. Davis Milling Company in 1890, which continued to develop the Aunt Jemima brand. Davis hired Nancy Green, a formerly enslaved woman from Montgomery County, Kentucky, to portray Aunt Jemima at the 1893 World's Columbian Exposition in Chicago. Green's demonstrations of the pancake mix at the exposition attracted enormous crowds and generated significant publicity for the brand, establishing Aunt Jemima as one of the first nationally marketed food brands in the United States.

The brand changed ownership several times in the early 20th century, passing through the Aunt Jemima Mills Company before being acquired by The Quaker Oats Company in 1926. Under Quaker Oats' ownership, the Aunt Jemima brand expanded from pancake mix into syrup, waffle mix, and other breakfast products. The brand became one of the most recognized in American food marketing, though its imagery remained rooted in racial stereotypes that were increasingly recognized as offensive.

In June 2020, amid widespread social justice protests following the murder of George Floyd, PepsiCo announced that it would retire the Aunt Jemima name and image, acknowledging that the brand's origins were based on a racial stereotype. The company stated that it was working to find a new name that would honor the brand's heritage while removing the offensive imagery. In February 2021, PepsiCo announced that the brand would be renamed Pearl Milling Company, honoring the original 1888 company that created the pancake mix. The new branding, featuring a windmill logo referencing the original milling company, was introduced in June 2021.

The rebrand was accompanied by a $1 million commitment from PepsiCo to support Black girls and women through community programs, acknowledging the harm caused by the original Aunt Jemima branding. The Pearl Milling Company name and packaging were introduced across all products in the brand's lineup, including pancake mixes, waffle mixes, and syrups.