This image provided by Mars Food shows the new logo/name of Bens Original. The Uncle Ben's rice brand is getting a new name: Ben's Original. (Mars via AP)NEW YORK – The Uncle Ben's rice brand is getting a new name: Ben's Original. In a short-lived 2007 marketing campaign, the company elevated Uncle Ben to chairman of a rice company. Dawson said months of conversations with employees, customer studies and other stakeholders led the company to settle on "Ben's Original.

(CNN) -- Uncle Ben's owner Mars is planning to change the rice maker's "brand identity." In a statement on its website Wednesday, Mars wrote that "now is the right time to evolve the Uncle Ben's brand, including its visual brand identity, which we will do." Earlier on Wednesday, Quaker Oats announced it's retiring the 130-year-old Aunt Jemima brand and logo. The Aunt Jemima brand, acknowledging its racist past, will be retiredAccording to the Uncle Ben's website, the name was first used in 1946 in reference to a black farmer known as Uncle Ben who excelled in rice-growing. However, the imagery evokes a servant and uses a title that reflects how white Southerners "once used 'uncle' and 'aunt' as honorifics for older blacks because they refused to say 'Mr.'