Nestle is doing some damage control in Chile, after it faced flak online over the name of a popular chocolate cookie in the country, with people calling it culturally "inappropriate."
The multinational food and beverage conglomerate is now changing the name of the cookie that been sold in Chile for over 60 years, from "Negrita" to "Chokita".
Nestle says the name change is in line with a “culture of respect and non-discrimination."
The “Negrita" is a vanilla cookie smothered in chocolate. But the word literally translates to “little black person" .
The male version “Negrito," got Uruguayan football star Edison Cavani fined for racism recently despite protests from Spanish authorities.
Terms "negrito/negrita", or “gordo/gorda", which are used for the obese, are widely used as endearments in some Latin American countries, even for those who are not black or overweight.
Interestingly, the packaging of the Nestle cookie, earlier featured the face of a black woman. A model who appeared in an advert for the cookie in the 1990s later said she had to darken her skin for the publicity campaign. Nestle is changing the packaging as well.