Sunrise exposes the VERY surprising problem with Coon cheese’s new name Cheer  

Australian cheese brand Coon was officially rebranded as ‘Cheer’ this week, following years of controversy about the name’s historical use as a racist slur. 

But not everyone is enthusiastic about the 86-year-old brand’s new identity.

Discussing the news on Wednesday, the cast of Seven’s Sunrise unanimously agreed that they weren’t sold on the name Cheer, as its pronunciation was confusing. 

‘I support the renaming but not sure about ‘Cheer’. What do you think? Do you like it?’ Matt Doran asked the other presenters.   

‘Initially I was like ‘ehh’, but look they had to do something,’ Natalie Barr shrugged.

‘And they were under a lot of pressure with that name,’ she continued, adding: ‘I know it was the founder’s name, but they had to do something and they came up with that. So, be open minded.’ 

‘The jury’s out!’ beamed Matt.  

Interjecting, Edwina Bartholomew noted that the name change has also sparked a debate about the way ‘cheer’ is pronounced in different parts of Australia.    

‘Because you say it differently,’ Edwina said to Natalie, who hails from Bunbury, Western Australia.  

Natalie then demonstrated how she says the word, pronouncing cheer as ‘chee-year’.  

‘It sounds like chia pudding!’ Matt mused, while Edwina added: ‘You say it with two syllables.’ 

‘Is at a Western Australian thing?’ Natalia replied, as Matt replied: ‘I think so.’   

Speaking to Sunrise later on Wednesday’s show, Lino Saputo, CEO of Coon’s Canadian parent company Saputo, said that he saw ‘no harm’ in changing the brand’s name.  

‘Coon is a brand that was known and I would say loved by some in Australia,’ Mr Saputo told Natalie. 

‘But it was important for us to understand that name did not please other consumers and created a connotation that was not favourable,’ he explained. 

‘We decided to embark on this journey to rename that brand and come up with something that we thought would resonate well with all consumers without exclusion.’       

Aboriginal activists, including academic and former diplomat Dr Stephen Hagan, have spent the past two decades lobbying to have the brand name changed as the word ‘coon’ is a slur against people of colour.  

The much-loved dairy product got its original name from American pioneering cheese processor Edward William Coon, who died in 1934.

He patented a ‘ripening process’ that was used to manufacture the original product in the 1920s.  

The rebranded Cheer Cheese will appear on supermarket shelves from July.