The Time They Canceled Syrup: The classic breakfast staple brand Aunt Jemima.

Finding out the impacts on sales of this branding switch is not easy. Common sense would dictate that considering all of the advanced hype of the decision, some follow-up details would be at the ready. There is little in the way of media interest in the results. Also, the company is not very forthcoming with the numbers. It has taken a bit of digging to come up with ballpark estimates.

We need to understand the timeline of the rebranding was stretched out. First, the Aunt Jemima image was removed in December 2020, but the name remained in place. The Pearl Milling Company name for the line of items was not applied until the summer of 2021, and there would be a lag time as the products were graduated off store shelves. So to get a read on the sales results means looking through the financials from then through 2022 – when the full change had taken place and sales were reflected in the reports.

And even this is an opaque presentation. In PepsiCo's quarterly reports, the company only details the performance of the subsidiaries in percentile changes in the various sectors without providing hard sales figures. So more sleuthing was needed. In one interview with Fortune Magazine, I found Kristin Kroepfl, chief marketing officer for Quaker Foods North America, stating that in the year 2020, the Aunt Jemima brand had $350 million in sales. Okay, this gives us something of a baseline.

Throughout 2021, the Quaker Foods division saw the pancake mix and syrup sales plunge. The period following the introduction of the name switch that summer reported "a double-digit decline in pancake syrup and mix." This was matched in the final quarter of that year – when the name change had gone into full effect – with "double-digit declines in pancake syrups and mixes."

This downward trend continued through last year. Quarter 1 delivered another "double-digit decline." In Q-2, Quaker saw unit volume grow 2% across all of its products but was weighed down by another "double-digit decline in pancake syrups and mixes," something also seen in the Q-3 reports. The only glimmer of positivity is that the former Aunt Jemima brand saw its bleeding slowing in Q-4, as that line only saw "a high-single-digit decline in pancake syrups and mixes."

Considering the vagueness of these reports (since "double-digit" can range anywhere from 10 to 99%), even applying the rosiest measurement, by only counting a ten percent decline in each of those six quarters, the former Aunt Jemima brand declined by at least -50% since the name change. It is very likely much worse.

This should serve as yet another object lesson for companies looking to enter the woke, DEI-ESG social awareness waters. As seen with Disney last year, and as Bud Light is experiencing now, appeasing and appealing to the woke mobs does not deliver market results. These are not reliable customer bases you are trying to curry favor with, and you are more likely to injure your brand than benefit from your virtue-signaling moves.

Look at how PepsiCo killed off a 130-year-old brand and, in the process, lost a huge amount of market share. Thinking about making good with activists? That is simply not good business.

https://townhall.com/columnists/bradslager/2023/04/20/a-lesson-in-corporate-wokeness-the-disaster-after-making-aunt-jemima-a-pariah-n2622208

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http://edwatch.blogspot.com (EDUCATION WATCH)

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https://immigwatch.blogspot.com/ (IMMIGRATION WATCH)

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http://jonjayray.com/blogall.html More blogs

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