Made from yeast extract, a by-product of brewing beer, Marmite (or Vegemite as it’s known as in Australia) is essentially the slurry from the bottom of the barrel that most breweries just throw away. It’s a sticky brown paste with a concentrated, salty flavour that’s usually spread on toast or eaten with cheese. People either ‘love it or hate it’… Most hate it.
Marmite was named after a type of French cooking pot.
It was accidentally discovered in the early 19th Century by German scientist Justus Freiherr von Liebig when he discovered that leftover brewers’ yeast could be concentrated and eaten.
In 1908 the Sanitarium Health Food Company obtained sole rights to distribute Marmite™ through New Zealand and Australia.
They began production in Christchurch City located on the South Island of New Zealand and it first hit the supermarket shelves in 1910.
The original UK recipe was tweaked with most notably being sweeter with the inclusion of sugar and caramel, and varying levels of other ingredients.
WHAT DOES MARMITE TASTE LIKE?
Marmite is a strong salty soy like spread that looks like an industrial lubricant. You often get mixed reactions. It does have a unique acquired taste. There are two versions of Marmite. One from the UK (original) and one from New Zealand (tweaked).
Marmite New Zealand: is milder, sweeter and has a stickier and gooey consistency and not runny like the UK recipe.
Marmite England: is the original extremely salty strong runny syrup spread.
MARMITE VS VEGEMITE
With some Australian ingenuity, a Melbourne chemist by the name of Cyril Percy Callister developed Australia’s own salty black spread back in 1919 after Marmite imports were disrupted by World War 2.
The flavour of both spreads has been described as ‘soy like’ in flavour being quite salty and strong. However, they are two very different spreads for the following reasons.
Appearance: Vegemite is jet black with a thicker texture similar to other spreads like peanut butter, whereas Marmite is runnier with a burnt brown colour.
Consistency: Marmite has a syrupy consistency, like honey or molasses, whereas Vegemite is thicker like margarine.
Taste: They all taste different. Vegemite is more salty and intense than NZ Marmite, which has a sweeter milder flavour. Its saltiness is a little bit less but more comparative to the UK Marmite version.
Battle of the breakfast bragging rights.
The battle between Australia’s Vegemite and the UK’s Marmite is a humorous age-old tale.
During the 2019 Ashes series (famous cricket series), they both flexed in what turned out to be a classic and funny public feud.
Vegemite headquarters got wind that Marmite was handing out free jars of its spread during the Ashes at Birmingham’s Edgbaston Cricket Ground, and they were not having a bar of it.
HOW MARMITE IS MARKETED
Marmite’s early advertisements made the most of its Vitamin B, cashing in on the healthy reputation the brand earned during the War. In the 1980s, an army platoon chanted the slogan “My mate, Marmite,” and by the ‘90s, the brand embraced its divisive nature with the “Love it or hate it” campaign. The adjective ‘marmite’ has even entered British dictionaries, “used in reference to something that tends to arouse strongly positive or negative reactions rather than indifference.”
Marmite is a food spread produced in New Zealand by Sanitarium Health and Wellbeing Company and distributed in Australia and the Pacific. Marmite is made from yeast extract, a by-product of beer brewing. It is similar to the British Marmite, but the two products are made by different companies.
Marmite has been manufactured in New Zealand since 1919. This is the only product sold as Marmite in Australasia and the Pacific, whereas elsewhere in the world the British version predominates.
In the late 19th century German scientist Justus von Liebig discovered that brewer’s yeast could be concentrated, bottled, and eaten. In 1902 the Marmite Food Extract Company was formed in Burton upon Trent, Staffordshire, England with Marmite as its main product and Burton as the site of the first factory.
The product’s popularity prompted the Sanitarium Health Food Company to obtain sole rights to distribute the product in New Zealand and Australia in 1908. They later began manufacturing Marmite under licence in Christchurch, albeit using a modified version of the original recipe, most notable for its inclusion of sugar and caramel. Common ingredients are also slightly different quantities from the British version; the New Zealand version has high levels of potassium, for example. New Zealand Marmite is described as having a “weaker” or “less tangy” flavour than the British version. It is distributed throughout Australia, New Zealand and the Pacific Islands.
Sanitarium recommends spreading Marmite on bread with potato chips added to make a “Marmite and Chippie” sandwich. In Singapore and Malaysia, Marmite is popularly added to plain rice congee to give it a strong, salty flavour. In Malaysia, Marmite has been used for cooking with chicken, prawns or crab.
Marmite is rich in B vitamins including thiamin (B1), riboflavin (B2), niacin (B3), folic acid (B9) and vitamin B12.
The sodium content of the spread is high and has caused concern, although it is the amount per serving rather than the percentage in bulk Marmite that is relevant. The main ingredient of Marmite is yeast extract, which contains a high concentration of glutamic acid.
