Racial stereotypes can be seen everywhere in our modern culture. Sometimes they are so ingrained into our society and daily lives that we easily overlook them. People encounter many of these racial stereotypes multiple times a day without even knowing. The food industry is no exception through the sometimes subtle, and sometimes not so subtle, portrayal of racial stereotypes. 

       Our group decided to do racial stereotypes in the food industry and food related products due to the vast amount of stereotypes that can be found in logos, name brands, and sometimes even toy foods!  There is no shortage of racial stereotypes to choose from in the food industry. Some are subtle; while others are so obvious it’s a wonder how the general public has not said something about them before. 

      We wanted to take the opportunity presented to us by this project to address the situation. We have found five different examples of racially charged advertisements in the food industry and altered them so that the racism would be more obvious. 

      One example that we used is not actually food, but a toy that enforces racist stereotypes on children. This food related product portrays Hello Kitty, a cat, as a part of a piece of sushi, an obvious stereotype of Asian cuisine. 

       Aunt Jemima maple syrup portrays an African-American woman dressed as typical house slave,  and a local restaurant called Jose Pepper's has a logo offensive to Latino and Hispanic people.

        Land O’ Lakes Butter products has a scantily clad Native American woman as a logo all the while ignoring the ironic fact that Native- American Lands and Lakes were stolen from them by white men.                 Ashton Kutcher was caught in a racist scandal when he appeared in Indian garb complete with  brown face for a Pop Chips advertisement.

      These are just the very tip of the iceberg as far as racial stereotypes in the food industry is concerned, for  there are numerous other businesses in the modern food industry that display racial stereotypes. We hope that our project will shed light on the numerous stereotypes enforced not only by the food industry, but also by almost every aspect of our culture and daily lives.