Land O’Lakes CEO Beth Ford shares the real reason the brand ditched its ‘butter maiden’

The 98-year-old dairy brand Land O’Lakes in February redesigned its packaging, replacing a logo featuring a Native American woman—the “butter maiden”—with the words “farmer-owned.” While the change was widely seen as a response to the pressure companies face to reevaluate outdated or insensitive symbols, CEO Beth Ford says the decision was more about what the farmer-owned co-op wanted to communicate rather than what it didn’t.

“We don’t want folks to misunderstand that someone was pressuring [us],” Ford told members of Fortune‘s Most Powerful Women community at a virtual gathering on Tuesday.

The revamp started with a months-long review of