Land O’Lakes Removes American Indian ‘Butter Maiden’ From Packaging

April 16, 2020 Admin 0 Comments

Plus, alcohol delivery services are battling it out for quarantine supremacy, and more news to start your day

The “butter maiden” will be replaced with a lake

Since 1928, Land O’Lakes butter has been adorned with the image of a “butter maiden,” a non-specific American Indian woman with a feather in her hair, kneeling and presenting the consumer with a container of butter. But in February, the dairy collective quietly removed the woman from its packaging, replacing her with an image of evergreen trees lining a broad body of water.

Modern Farmer notes that the company’s February announcement didn’t explicitly mention the “butter maiden.” Instead, it announced new packaging for the company’s 100th anniversary which features photos of the brand’s farmers. “Research shows that consumers care about farmers and are excited when they learn Land O’Lakes is farmer-owned,” said Senior Vice President Heather Anfang. “We’re eager to share that message with shoppers and extending that farmer-owned story to our packaging is arguably our most direct vehicle to communicate with consumers.”

The previous logo had long been criticized for being racist and stereotypical. North Dakota Rep. Ruth Buffalo told The Grand Forks Tribune that the image goes “hand-in-hand with human and sex trafficking of our women and girls.… by depicting Native women as sex objects,” and that “We as a whole need to keep pushing forward to address the underlying issues that directly impact an entire population that survived genocide.”

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