Coon cheese


COON is the Australian trademark of a cheddar cheese produced by the Warrnambool Cheese and Butter company. It was first launched in 1935 by Fred Walker. Coon cheese is named after its American creator, Edward William Coon of Philadelphia, who patented a method, subsequently known as the Cooning process, for fast maturation of cheese via high temperature and humidity.
LD&D Foods were the previous operator of the brand, until May 2015 when it was sold back to WCB which is majority-owned by Canadian dairy company Saputo Inc.

Origin

In August 1923, The Journal and Republican of Lowville, New York, reported the sale by "E. W. Coon of Philadelphia, maker and shipper of cheese", of five milk plants in villages around Watertown to the Dairymen's League Co Operative Association, Inc. It also stated that
On 27 February 1926, Coon filed an application for a Process for Ripening Cheese. Patent No 1579196 was issued on 30 March 1926. Coon's patent claimed:
  1. A process for ripening cheese, consisting of supplying, through suitable means, humidified air to a room or chamber set aside for the purpose, the humidified air to have a range of temperature from 45° to 75° F., and a moisture percentage of from 65% to 95%.
  2. A process for ripening cheese having an original moisture percentage of 36% to 40% and subjecting it to a temperature of 55° F., to 70° F., in combination with a humidity percentage of from 75% to 90%.
From 1933, a cheese was marketed by Fred Walker as Red Coon, and was coated with red wax. The wax was later replaced with cellophane, and the red stripe in the logo is a residual reference to the original packaging.

Naming

The product name, which it shares with a racial slur, was defended by previous manufacturers Kraft and Dairy Farmers despite decades-long campaigns to change it, including through challenges to the Australian Human Rights Commission in 1999 and Advertising Standards Bureau in 2001 by activist Stephen Hagan. Amid Australian involvement in 2020 Black Lives Matter protests, on 24 July Saputo Inc. announced the name would be changed.
British comedian Stephen K. Amos regularly performs a skit on Coon Cheese as part of his live show, due to the word "Coon" also being an ethnic slur used for indigenous and black people.