The sauce will now be sold in Germany under the name “Hungarian paprika sauce”, so as not to discriminate against the Roma and Sinti population.
The name change follows recent international debates over racism following the May murder of an African American George Floyd by police.
KEYSTONE
The food company Knorr, which belongs to the Anglo-Dutch giant Unilever, will rename its “gypsy sauce”, marketed in Germany, because of its character considered discriminatory towards the population of Roma and Sinti.
In a few weeks, this popular spicy sauce, a staple food in many German households, will be sold in the country as “Hungarian paprika sauce,” Unilever said in a statement, sent by email on Monday, confirming information from the UK. Bild newspaper from this weekend.
“We are working intensively to free advertising from discrimination and stereotypes,” the company writes. “As the concept of + gypsy sauce + can be interpreted negatively, we decided to give our Knorr sauce another name,” she adds.
The name change follows recent international debates on racism, particularly in the United States, that arose after the May murder of an African American George Floyd by police.
Pepsi, Uncle Ben’s and the others
Other large companies have also renamed traditional brands in response to concerns about racial stereotypes. The American group PepsiCo had announced the imminent disappearance of one of its most popular brands of syrup, “Aunt Jemima”, embodied for 131 years by the face of a black woman. The Mars company, for its part, wants to abandon the image of an elderly African-American man, displayed as an inset on packages of Uncle Ben’s branded rice since the 1940s.
Unilever’s decision was welcomed by the German Central Council for Roma and Sinti. “It is good that Knorr reacted to the protests of many people”, estimated its president Romani Rose in the columns of Bild. He expressed his concern at the rise of anti-Roma sentiment in Germany and Europe, noting in particular that the names “Gypsy” but also “Jewish” were used as insults by supporters in football stadiums.
Europe has some 11 million Roma who constitute its largest ethnic minority. But they continue to suffer from disproportionate poverty and discrimination.
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