DOCSLIB.ORG

Australia's Coon Cheese to Change Name in Effort to Help 'Eliminate Racism'

Total Page：16

File Type：pdf, Size：1020Kb

Download full-text PDF Read full-text
Australia's Coon Cheese to Change Name in Effort to Help 'Eliminate Racism' ____________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ _______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________ Australia’s Coon cheese to change name in effort to help ‘eliminate racism' Company has previously resisted calls to change branding, saying it was named after American cheesemaker Edward William Coon Australian cheese brand Coon will change its name after Black Lives Matter protests once again put the focus on the brand and a campaign stating it was offensive to Indigenous Australians. Photograph: Bianca de Marchi/AAP Elias Visontay 24 Jul 2020 The Australian cheese brand Coon will change its name to help “eliminate racism” following a campaign stating the product name was offensive to Indigenous Australians. Friday’s announcement by Saputo, the dairy company that owns Coon, “to retire the Coon brand name”, comes after a decades-long effort to rename the cheese, including an unsuccessful 1999 complaint to the Australian Human Rights Commission from Indigenous activist Dr Stephen Hagan. Hagan told the Guardian on Friday the decision was “a total vindication of 20 years of campaigning”. Coon, along with other businesses, artists and cultural symbols, has come under fresh scrutiny over racial connotations in recent months as the Black Lives Matter movement gained momentum in Australia. 2 The brand, which was first sold in 1935, has long resisted calls to change its name, defending its historical decision to name the cheese after American cheesemaker Edward William Coon, who, according to the brand’s website, “patented a unique ripening process” used to make the dairy product. A new name for Coon has not yet been decided, but Saputo said it was “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”. “At Saputo, one of our basic principles as an organisation is to treat people with respect and without discrimination and we will not condone behaviour that goes against this,” the company said in a statement. “As such, we performed a careful and diligent review of a sensitive situation involving one of our brands. 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. “We believe we all share in the responsibility to eliminate racism in all its forms and we feel this is an important step we must take to uphold this commitment.” Hagan received a letter from Lino Saputo Jr - the chief executive of Saputo whose grandfather founded the Canadian company - on Friday morning ahead of the public announcement. He said he’d previously questioned the story provided by Coon regarding its founder. “I’ve told Dairy Farmers and Kraft (the previous owners) that I’d drop my campaign against the name if they can show me the credentials of this fellow (Edward William Coon),” Hagan said “They call him a doctor, so why couldn’t they tell me what university he graduated from? Did he have any scientific journal entries?” Hagan said the momentum created by the Black Lives Matter movement was a factor in the decision to finally change the name. The criticism he previously received when campaigning for the rebranding was a sign of Australia’s racial sensitivity, he added. “It’s from a past when everything was right and white, and I dared to challenge the status quo. They didn’t like that. 3 “After all it’s just a little piece of cheese. It’s not like I have been asking them to cut their executives’ wages. The cheese will still taste the same.” Hagan said after Friday’s announcement he was looking forward to visiting the dairy section of a supermarket and not having to see the word Coon on the shelf. “I’ll be glad,” Hagan said. Comment has been sought from Dairy Farmers and Kraft and additional comment has been sought from Saputo. .
Load more

Recommended publications
  • The Complete Book of Cheese by Robert Carlton Brown
    THE COMPLETE BOOK OF CHEESE BY ROBERT CARLTON BROWN Chapter One I Remember Cheese Cheese market day in a town in the north of Holland. All the cheese- fanciers are out, thumping the cannon-ball Edams and the millstone Goudas with their bare red knuckles, plugging in with a hollow steel tool for samples. In Holland the business of judging a crumb of cheese has been taken with great seriousness for centuries. The abracadabra is comparable to that of the wine-taster or tea-taster. These Edamers have the trained ear of music-masters and, merely by knuckle-rapping, can tell down to an air pocket left by a gas bubble just how mature the interior is. The connoisseurs use gingerbread as a mouth-freshener; and I, too, that sunny day among the Edams, kept my gingerbread handy and made my way from one fine cheese to another, trying out generous plugs from the heaped cannon balls that looked like the ammunition dump at Antietam. I remember another market day, this time in Lucerne. All morning I stocked up on good Schweizerkäse and better Gruyère. For lunch I had cheese salad. All around me the farmers were rolling two- hundred-pound Emmentalers, bigger than oxcart wheels. I sat in a little café, absorbing cheese and cheese lore in equal quantities. I learned that a prize cheese must be chock-full of equal-sized eyes, the gas holes produced during fermentation. They must glisten like polished bar glass. The cheese itself must be of a light, lemonish yellow. Its flavor must be nutlike.
    [Show full text]
  • Allora Advertiser Ph 07 4666 3128 - Fax 07 4666 3822 - E-Mail [email protected] - Web THURSDAY, 30Th June 2011
    Issue No. 3152 The Allora Advertiser Ph 07 4666 3128 - Fax 07 4666 3822 - E-Mail [email protected] - Web www.alloraadvertiser.com THURSDAY, 30th June 2011 Printed by David Patrick Gleeson and Published by Dairy Brokers Australia Pty. Ltd., at the Office, 53 Herbert Street, Allora, Q. 4362 Issued Weekly as an Advertising Medium to the people of Allora and surrounding Districts. MARKET DAY SPECIALS FRIDAY, 1st JULY 2011 SUPER ONE DAY ONLY PRICES! Fruit & Veg, FRESH from the BRISBANE MARKETS PLUS… ✔ Morning Fresh Dishwashing Liquid BONUS ✔ 2 Regular BBQ Chickens .................... $13.98 450mL .................................................... $1.99 ✔ Buttercup S/Sandwich 650g .................. $1.29 ✔ Four N' Twenty Chunky Meat Pies 4pk . $4.99 ✔ Deb's Sandwich Loaf 700g ................... $1.29 ✔ Smiths Chips 185g ....................... 2 for $4.00 ✔ Your Choice Milk 3L .............................. $3.00 ✔ Cottees Jam 500g ................................. $2.79 ✔ Your Choice Milk 2L .............................. $2.00 ✔ MultiCrop Snail & Slug Killer 600g ........ $2.99 ✔ Duo Laundry Powder 500g Conc. ........ $1.89 ✔ Multix Alfoil 20m .................................... $2.99 ✔ Streets Blue Ribbon Ice Cream 2L ....... $3.49 ✔ Greens Cake Mix 340g/470g ................ $1.89 ✔ Coon Cheese Tasty 750g ...................... $6.99 ✔ ✔ Bushels Tea Bags 100s ......................... $3.39 Ardmona Tinned Fruit 825g ................... $2.99 ✔ Blossom Margarine ...................... 2 for $2.00 ✔ Purex Toilet Rolls 9pk
    [Show full text]
  • Sugar Ray's Bitterness
    Sugar Ray's bitterness By Greg Roberts Sydney Morning Herald 5 October 2002 Rivalry over government funding and political power has spilled over into a nasty brawl in outback Queensland. Greg Roberts reports. ONE of Australia's most powerful Aboriginal leaders points to a patch of dry mulga scrub outside the south-west Queensland town of Charleville. "That's where I grew up as a kid; that's where the tin shed was," says "Sugar" Ray Robinson, deputy chairman of the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission (ATSIC). "It had a dirt floor; eight of us lived there. We carted water in a bucket from a tap every day. We ate bread and water with sugar sprinkled on it. There wasn't a day went past that I wasn't hungry." Robinson, 56, has come a long way. Today he heads the National Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Legal Services Secretariat and 13 other indigenous bodies. A powerbroker in ATSIC, he is a constant thorn in the side of the commission chairman, Geoff Clark. Robinson predicts that after the October 19 ATSIC elections, Clark will no longer be chairman. "Geoff Clark has a problem and the problem is he is not going to get in as chairman while I'm there," he booms in his trademark gravelly voice. "He hasn't got the numbers. He knows that if he's ever to get back as chairman, I'm his biggest threat." Robinson insists he does not covet the top job. Clark infuriated Robinson recently when he called for an investigation into allegations against his deputy in a series of articles in Brisbane's The Courier-Mail newspaper.
    [Show full text]
  • 2012 Annual Report 2012 Rna Rna Royal Queensland Food and Wine Show
    The RoyAl NAtional AgRicultural and iNdustRiAl AssociAtioN of QueeNsland annual report 2012 1 ANNUAL REPORT 2012 RNA PRESIDENT’S REPORT PRESIDENT’S REPORT 2 Change brings RNA Showgrounds Regeneration Project opportunity. Almost a decade ago we set out to HIGHLIGHTS 3 2012 was a year build on our strong foundation with two of significant MISSION, VISION AND VALUES 4 critical goals in mind—to keep the Royal change for The Queensland Show (Ekka) at its birthplace, RNA CORPORATE 6 Royal National the RNA Showgrounds, and cement Agricultural the long-term financial viability of the THROUGH THE YEARS 10 and Industrial association so that the RNA can continue Association of Queensland (RNA) to fulfil its charter. ROYAL QUEENSLAND SHOW / and a year where we pursued every EKKA 14 opportunity. The RNA’s regeneration project resulted. RNA SHOWGROUNDS 20 We continued with our efforts to unlock Approved in November 2010 with the ROYAL INTERNATIONAL the potential of the RNA Showgrounds ground broken in April the following year, CONVENTION CENTRE 22 for the benefit of all stakeholders and the 2012 focused on redeveloping the iconic community at large, while staying true Industrial Pavilion to create the world- 2 ROYAL QUEENSLAND to the association’s charter. class convention centre. FOOD AND WINE SHOW 26 Your association made significant Other stage one works undertaken DIGITAL INTERACTION 28 headway on the $2.9 billion RNA during the year included the removal of OFFICE BEARERS 31 Showgrounds Regeneration Project— several buildings allowing construction the largest Brownfield development of the Plaza fronting the convention IN MEMORIAM 32 of its kind in Australia.
    [Show full text]
  • For Personal Use Only Use Personal For
    30 March 2015 ASX Announcement Re: General meeting of Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory Company Holdings Limited (Company) and Proxy Form Please find attached the following documents: Notice of General Meeting and Explanatory Memorandum; and Proxy Form. Yours faithfully, Paul Moloney Company Secretary For personal use only Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory Company Holdings Limited 5331 Great Ocean Road, Allansford Victoria 3277 Australia Telephone: (03) 5565 3100 Facsimile: (03) 5565 3156 Website: wcbf.com.au ACN 071 945 232 ABN 15 071 945 232 Notice of general meeting and explanatory memorandum Warrnambool Cheese and Butter Factory Company Holdings Limited ACN 071 945 232 Date: Thursday, 30 April 2015 Time: 8.00 am (Melbourne time) Place: Clayton Utz Level 18, 333 Collins Street Melbourne, Victoria 3000 THE DIRECTORS UNANIMOUSLY RECOMMEND THAT NON-ASSOCIATED SHAREHOLDERS VOTE IN FAVOUR OF THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION. THE INDEPENDENT EXPERT, GRANT THORNTON CORPORATE FINANCE PTY LTD ACN 003 265 987, AFSL 247140, HAS CONCLUDED THAT THE PROPOSED TRANSACTION IS FAIR AND REASONABLE TO NON-ASSOCIATED SHAREHOLDERS. This is an important document and requires your immediate attention. You should read the whole of this document before you decide whether and how to vote on the Resolution in the Notice of Meeting. If you are in doubt as to what you should do, please consult your financial or professional adviser. For personal use only CONTENTS Chairman's Letter Page 3 Notice of general meeting Page 4 Instructions for voting and proxies Page 5 Explanatory Memorandum Page 8 Independent Expert's Report Page 12 Key dates Date of this document Thursday, 26 March 2015 Proxy form to be received no later than Tuesday, 28 April 2015 at 8.00 am (Melbourne time) General Meeting Thursday, 30 April 2015 at 8.00 am (Melbourne time) DISCLAIMER AND IMPORTANT NOTICES Important This booklet is an important document.
    [Show full text]
  • 3285-Aamar0614.Pdf
    Celebrating Issue No. 3285 Years of service to the The community Published Allora by Dairy Brokers Australia Pty. Ltd., at the AdvertiserOffice, 53 Herbert Street, Allora, Q. 4362 Issued Weekly as an Advertising Medium to the people of Allora and surrounding Districts. Your FREE Local Ph 07 4666 3128 - Fax 07 4666 3822 - E-Mail [email protected] - Web www.alloraadvertiser.com THURSDAY, 6th MARCH 2014 MARKET DAY SPECIALS FRIDAY, 7th MARCH 2014 SUPER ONE DAY ONLY PRICES! Fruit & Veg, FRESH from the ✔ Omo Laundry Powder 1kg ......... ✔ Lettuce ........................ $1.99 ea BRISBANE MARKETS PLUS… ......................................... $5.99 ✔ Avocados .................... $1.69 ea ✔ Kraft Cheese Colby Block 1kg ... ✔ Nescafe Mild Roast 250g $7.99 ✔ Pumpkin Jap ...................89¢ kg ......................................... $8.00 ✔ ✔ Small Watermelon ..........99¢ kg Arnotts Chocolate Tim Tam ✔ Dairy Farmers Yoghurt 600g ..... ✔ Tomatoes .....................$2.49 kg 200g ................................. $1.99 ......................................... $3.75 ✔ Zammit Leg Ham .......$10.99 kg ✔ Kleenex Toilet Rolls 8pk .. $3.99 ✔ Coon Cheese Tasty Block 1kg ... ✔ ✔ Golden Circle Drink 6x250mL .... ......................................... $8.00 2 x Regular BBQ Chickens ........ ......................................... $2.50 ✔ Nanna Apple Crumble 550g ...... ....................................... $14.00 ✔ Golden Circle Cordial 2L . $2.89 ......................................... $2.99 ✔ Primo Middle Bacon ........ $8.99
    [Show full text]
  • Holland Park Australia
    PO Box 5151 Mt Gravatt East 4122 Meetings: 9.30 a.m. to 11.45 a.m. every third Thursday of the month. Venue: Newnham Hotel, Newnham Rd, Upper Mt Gravatt https://www.probussouthpacific.org/microsites/hollandparkcentral/Home [email protected] Editor: [email protected] January 2021 Issue No.149 The HP Source – It’s a bottler! bottler!bbbbbbbbottler!bottbottlerbottler! Jill’s Jottings It’s three days before Christmas and I still have two gifts to buy and another two to post to America which, of course, will not arrive in time. Fortunately, my daughter is understanding of the time delay. Our Christmas celebrations were very much enjoyed by all who attended. Many thanks to Bill and Lynne for their organisation. Our thanks to the Newnham hotel whose staff did an outstanding job of decorating the room which set the mood as soon as we entered. The meal lived up to our expectations and the entertainment was very good. What a difficult year it has been for people around the world. This nasty virus has caused grief and loss for so many families around the world. We are truly blessed here in Australia. If we put it in perspective, approximately one-third of the world’s population was infected with the Spanish flu in 1918. That equated to about 500 million people infected, and it is estimated between 20- 50 million people died world-wide. Did you know the Spanish flu probably did not originate in Spain? It has been suggested that France, Britain, and China were the source of the infection, and also the USA, as the first documented case was reported at a military base in Kansas in early 1918.
    [Show full text]
  • Saputo Does First Australians No Favours
    29 July, 2020 SAPUTO DOES FIRST AUSTRALIANS NO FAVOURS Canadian dairy company Saputo’s decision to bow to misguided political pressure over the name of a much-loved brand of cheese will do nothing to advance the interests of indigenous Australians, Katter’s Australian Party Leader Robbie Katter has said. Traeger MP Robbie Katter said Saputo’s decision to retire the “Coon” cheese brand, named after founder Edward William Coon, after 94 years was virtue-signalling at its most grotesque. He said the decision, which disregards the true origins of the name, was an insult to history and to those working on solutions to the real struggles facing indigenous Australians in 2020. Mr Katter, who represents a vast Queensland state electorate with an indigenous population of more than 20 per cent, said the challenges facing First Australians today were real and complex but had nothing to do with cheese. He said unemployment, high crime rates and chronic and systemic issues with access to fresh food and affordable groceries were among the day-to-day struggles people were facing. “Twitter activists might go to bed at night thinking they’ve done something worthwhile by changing the name of a cheese brand,” Mr Katter said. “But the truth is First Australians in the country’s most remote communities are still going to be paying more than double to buy that cheese when compared to capital cities. “Chronically high food prices and a lack of food security is one of the most acute issues impacting health and well-being and liveability in indigenous areas, including at Doomadgee in my electorate.” In his letter to Saputo president, Mr Richard Wallace, Mr Katter highlighted the fact that the “Coon” family name had no racist origins.
    [Show full text]
  • Strategies and Relationships in the Dairy-Food Supply Chain: Options for Milk Producers in South-East Queensland
    The University of Queensland Strategies and Relationships in the Dairy-food Supply Chain: Options for Milk Producers in South-east Queensland A thesis submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy at the University of Queensland in September 2004 Gurpreet Issar School of Natural and Rural Systems Management Strategies and Relationships in the Dairy-food Supply Chain: Options for Milk Producers in South-east Queensland Declaration of Originality The work presented in the thesis, to the best of my knowledge, is the original work of the author. It has not been submitted for a degree at this or any other university. Gurpreet Issar ii Strategies and Relationships in the Dairy-food Supply Chain: Options for Milk Producers in South-east Queensland Acknowledgements I would like to begin by thanking Tom Cowan for being a guide and a mentor during the entire process of writing this thesis. I consider myself extremely fortunate to have had Tom’s professional and personal support, and unfaltering encouragement. I also wish to thank Beth Woods for her continuing involvement in the supervision of my PhD. I am especially grateful for her direction at a very critical time of writing this thesis. My sincere thanks to Mal Wegener for valuable suggestions and providing me with industry information. I am also grateful to Dairy Australia for providing the funding which made this research possible. I must also acknowledge the Graduate School at the University of Queensland for the Graduate School Research Travel Award which provided me with an opportunity to travel to New Zealand for PhD related field work.
    [Show full text]
  • Australia's Blackest Sporting Moments: the Top 100
    Australia's Blackest Sporting Moments: The Top 100 Australia's Blackest Sporting Moments: The Top 100; 2006; Ngalga Warralu Publishing Pty Ltd, 2006; Stephen Hagan; 1921212004, 9781921212000 Internationally renowned academic, political advocate and award winning author, Stephen Hagan reveals the darker side of racism in sport and exposes Australian ugly underbelly. Australia's Blackest Sporting Moments: The Top 100 is a painfully easy read of incidents of racism in Australian sport. Hagan has cleverly used a diverse range of professional non-Indigenous contributors to review 10 separate articles and in doing so adds balanced perspectives of this regrettable past. The contrast in styles and interpretations of the 100 incidents is appealing in its simplicity. The book has 46 cartoons illustrating various incidents in humorous way. Hagan takes the reader on a journey not many of them would like to go. However the compelling read of iconic figures identified in his book is so profound that the reader's initial anxiety of 'not another black arm band book?' is quickly relieved. It is demonstrably clear from Henry Lawson's 1908 remarks of African American Jack Johnson defeat of Tommy Burns 'for a nigger smacked your face' to Yvonne Goolagong receiving abuse 'That's the first time I've ever been beaten by a nigger' to the infamous Queensland Cricket Captain, Jimmy Maher's, comments "full as a coon's Valiant'', that the author's extensive research has not missed an incident of note since the time of colonisation. Hagan's deliberate inclusion of Indigenous perpetrators of racial abuse gives creditability to an otherwise bias book.
    [Show full text]
  • Cancelled! How Ideological Cleansing Threatens Australia
    Analysis Paper 13 August 2020 Cancelled! How ideological cleansing threatens Australia Peter Kurti Cancelled! How ideological cleansing threatens Australia Peter Kurti Analysis Paper 13 Contents Iconoclasm: the high price of purity .........................................................................1 Three dangers ...............................................................................................1 The cost of indifference...................................................................................2 Down with Cook ....................................................................................................2 Cancelled! The mob bays for ‘safety’ ........................................................................3 From grievance to outrage: Black Lives Matter ..........................................................4 Cancel culture and BLM: a war of all against all .........................................................5 Woke and the occlusion of truth ...............................................................................6 Are you woke, Australia? ........................................................................................7 Racism .........................................................................................................7 Anti-Zionism .................................................................................................8 Indigenous Australians ...................................................................................8 The illiberal pursuit of justice
    [Show full text]
  • PDF EPUB} the N Word by Stephen Hagan Books, Books & More Books
    Read Ebook {PDF EPUB} The N Word by Stephen Hagan Books, books & more books. Sign up to our emails and be the first to know about new releases, special offers and more. Readings. Australian Book Retailer of the Year 2021. The N Word. Stephen Hagan. Format. The N Word. Stephen Hagan. An uncompromising insight into Indigenous politics. Academic and political advocate, Stephen Hagan, went all the way to the United Nations with his battle to remove the word Nigger from a sign at a Queensland sports ground. Pushing through harsh opposition, including KKK death threats against his family, Hagan successfully petitioned the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination. Stephen fought his own people in order to campaign for transparency and accountability in publicly-funded organisations and was involved in the Queensland State Tripartite Forum and the controversial 1996 Mundingburra bi-election. The N Word touches on family history, especially that of his father, Jim Hagan, who was a leading spokesman on Aboriginal Affairs and was the first Aboriginal to address the UN General Assembly in Geneva. Discover the man behind the public face and see how a childhood growing up in a fringe camp fired Stephen Hagans determination to fight for human rights. This item is not currently in-stock. It can be ordered online and is expected to ship in 3-7 days. Why didn’t we leave the cheese alone – and tackle violence and sexual abuse in Indigenous communities instead? I’ve managed to go through my whole not so short life without ever associating the name of Coon Cheese with anything but cheese.
    [Show full text]