Vegemite

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Vegemite is a thick, dark brown spread that Australians put on toast, and it began as something breweries were throwing away. In October 2008 the factory in Port Melbourne produced the billionth jar. Today that single site makes more than 22 million jars a year. Yet the product that Australians now spread thinly on buttered bread once sold so badly that its makers gave it a different name. It has also been blamed for an alleged American ban, a Danish scare, a prison ruling and a Canadian customs problem. How did leftover brewers' yeast become an Australian household staple? Why did a brand with a loyal following get caught up in so many rumours of bans? And what happened when its owners tried to rename a new product for a younger audience?

  1312382

• 2. From Brewery Waste

  ›

  In 1919, the Australian company Fred Walker & Co. faced a problem. British Marmite had been disrupted by the aftermath of World War I, and imports were no longer dependable. The chairman, Fred Walker, had hired a chemist named Cyril Callister, and he gave him the job of making a spread from the used yeast that breweries were dumping.

  Callister took waste yeast from the Carlton & United brewery and used autolysis, a process that breaks the yeast cells apart. He concentrated the clear liquid that resulted. Then he blended it with salt and with extracts of celery and onion. The result was a sticky black paste.

  The spread still needed a name. The company ran a competition with a prize pool of £A50. Fred Walker's daughter Sheilah picked the winner, which was Vegemite. The person who actually coined the word is not known. The name was registered as a trademark in Australia in 1919.

  The product reached shops later, on the 25th of October 1923. Its early advertising stressed its value to children's health. Even so, Vegemite was a weak seller, and Walker's team had to find a new way to push it against the established rival.

  3581011

• 3. The Parwill Detour

  ›

  From 1928 to 1935, a jar bearing the name Parwill sat on shelves where Vegemite should have been. The new name was a joke aimed squarely at the competition. The slogan ran "Marmite but Parwill", a two-step pun. If Ma, meaning mother, might, then Pa, meaning father, will.

  The pun did not work. Parwill failed to win market share, and the company dropped it and went back to the name Vegemite. The product never regained the ground it had lost during those years.

  The recovery came from an unexpected direction. In 1925, Walker had set up the Kraft Walker Cheese Co. as a joint venture with J. L. Kraft & Bros to sell processed cheese. After Parwill failed, in 1935 he used the success of that cheese business to promote his spread. He died in the same year.

  53819

• 4. Cheese, Poems and Pontiacs

  ›

  After Walker's death in 1935, the Fred Walker Company was absorbed by Kraft Walker Cheese Co., a subsidiary of Kraft Co. Vegemite now belonged to an American-owned business with a large marketing reach.

  The new owners ran a two-year campaign. Shoppers who bought Kraft Walker cheese products received Vegemite free, using a coupon. Poetry competitions followed, with imported American Pontiac cars offered as prizes.

  Sales responded. In 1939 the British Medical Association officially endorsed Vegemite as a rich source of B vitamins. War then gave the spread another role. Vegemite was rationed in Australia during World War II and was included in Australian Army rations. By the late 1940s it was used in nine out of ten Australian homes.

  The wartime advertising took a stern tone. One notice declared that Vegemite fights with the men up north. It asked civilians who did not need it medicinally to give it up for the time being, because thousands of invalids were asking for it. Magazine ads also featured a "Sister MacDonald", who insisted the spread was essential for infant welfare.

  58193744

• 5. Happy Little Vegemites

  ›

  In 1954, the advertising agency J. Walter Thompson began a campaign built around groups of smiling, healthy children singing a catchy jingle. The song was called "We're happy little Vegemites". Its lines promised that the children were growing stronger every single week because they loved their Vegemite, and that it put a rose in every cheek.

  The jingle first aired on radio in 1954. It moved to television in 1956. The campaign ran until the late 1960s. Because it spoke to children, the makers eventually dropped it in favour of ads aimed at all ages.

  In the late 1980s the original black and white commercial was remastered, partly colourised and brought back. It was broadcast from time to time between 1991 and 2010. Two young twin girls who sang in the commercial became known as the "Vegemite Twins".

  In March 2007, Kraft announced a search for the eight original children, to mark the ad's 50th anniversary. The plan was to remake the 1956 commercial with them as adults, forging a link between the new generation and the old ad. The media took up the hunt, and all eight were identified in eight days. The reunion campaign won the Arts, Entertainment & Media Campaign of the Year award at the Asia Pacific PR Awards in November 2007.

  4344454637

• 6. What Is in the Jar

  ›

  A 5 gram serving of Vegemite contains 173 mg of sodium, which is 8% of the recommended daily intake. Australia only defines low salt foods. By United Kingdom standards, Vegemite counts as high in salt. That explains why it is eaten in small amounts.

  The flavour is salty, slightly bitter and malty. Its umami character resembles beef bouillon, and the cause is glutamic acid, which is highly concentrated in the yeast extract. The spread has no fat, no added sugar and no animal content. It does contain gluten, since the yeast comes from brewing.

  Vegemite is a source of the B vitamins thiamine, riboflavin, niacin and folate, which are B1, B2, B3 and B9. The base version has no vitamin B12. In September 2014 a low-salt version arrived, with 25% less sodium, and that one is fortified with B6 and B12.

  Certification came slowly. Limited quantities of kosher Vegemite were first made in the 1980s. A 2004 decision to stop certification was reversed after a backlash from Jewish consumers. By 2010, every jar and tube of ordinary Vegemite carried the stamp of the Kashrut Authority in New South Wales, and halal certification arrived the same year. The makers had long said the spread suited vegans, but formal vegan certification only came on World Vegan Day 2019.

  3940413234

• 7. How Australians Eat It

  ›

  The classic method is toasted bread with a layer of butter or margarine, topped with a thin scrape of Vegemite. A Vegemite sandwich is two slices of buttered bread with the spread, and some people add cheese, lettuce, avocado or tomato.

  It also works inside pastries. The cheesymite scroll is one example. The official Vegemite website goes further, with recipes for pasta, burgers, pizzas, casseroles and even ice cream. It suggests stirring the spread into soups or two-minute noodles.

  The rock band Men at Work mention a "Vegemite sandwich" in the second verse of their 1982 hit "Down Under", from the album Business as Usual. King Gizzard & the Lizard Wizard have a song called "Vegemite" on their 2014 album Oddments, and John Williamson's country song "True Blue" also mentions it.

  Supermarket products carry the flavour too, including Smith's Crisps, In a Biskit, bagel crisps, sausages, meat pies and Arnott's Shapes.

  2430317980

• 8. Line Extensions and One Bad Name

  ›

  The 1990s brought Vegemite Singles, which merged two Kraft products into one Vegemite-flavoured cheese. The idea drew on the popularity of Vegemite and cheese sandwiches. It was later taken off the market.

  On the 13th of June 2009, Kraft released a version blending Vegemite with Kraft cream cheese. It spread more easily and tasted milder and less salty. Kraft held a naming competition, and during the 2009 AFL Grand Final broadcast it announced the winner: iSnack 2.0. A panel of marketing and communication experts had chosen it to appeal to a younger market, borrowing from the popularity of Apple's iPod and iPhone.

  Australia reacted with universal criticism and ridicule. Opinion columns and social networking sites filled with scorn. After only four days, Kraft released plans to drop the iSnack name and admitted it might have been a mistake. Two days later it opened a new poll. On the 7th of October 2009 the final name was announced: Vegemite Cheesybite. Kraft said it had taken 36% of the 30,357 votes cast, or approximately 10,900 votes. The favourite suggestion, Cheesymite, was already trademarked by other organisations. Under Bega's ownership the product is now called Vegemite & Cheese.

  Other experiments followed. In 2011 Kraft launched My First Vegemite for children older than one year, with a milder taste and 50% less sodium. Reaction was mostly positive, yet it was discontinued in 2012 because of poor sales. In April 2015 Cadbury announced a Vegemite-flavoured Caramello chocolate block, due on the 1st of June. Tasters described salted caramel with an umami aftertaste. Some loved it and some disliked the aftertaste. In 2017 came the limited-time Vegemite Blend 17, promising a richer, bolder taste at double the standard price.

  In October 2006, an Australian news company reported that Vegemite was banned in the United States. The story claimed customs officers were searching Australians entering the country for jars, because Vegemite naturally contains folate, a B vitamin approved as an additive in the US for only a few foods such as breakfast cereals. The Food and Drug Administration said it had no plans to ban it or pull it from shelves. United States Customs and Border Protection stated that there was no known prohibition on importing Vegemite. The tale became an urban legend.

  In May 2011, newspapers reported that Vegemite and Marmite had been banned in Denmark and removed from shelves. Outraged fans set up several Facebook groups. Denmark's Ministry of Food, Agriculture and Fisheries replied that neither had been banned. The companies simply had not applied for licences. In 2004 Denmark had passed a law prohibiting the sale of food products fortified with vitamins, as a danger to health.

  Some bans are real. Victorian prisons began banning Vegemite in the 1990s, to stop inmates brewing alcohol from its high yeast content, even though it holds no live yeast. Similar bans were proposed in 2015 for a number of dry communities in outback Australia, but were not enacted. In 2025, the convicted murderer Andre McKechnie challenged the prison ban, arguing it denied him the right to enjoy his culture as an Australian. The case is set for trial in 2026.

  Also in 2025, the owner of an Australian-themed cafe in Toronto was told by the Canadian Food Inspection Agency that Vegemite could not be sold in Canada because of its added vitamin B. After an intervention from the Australian government, the agency said the risk to human health from the added vitamins was low, and the sale was allowed again.

  A jar of Vegemite in April 1984 became the first product in Australia to be electronically scanned at a checkout. It was a 115 g jar.

  The recipe has stayed almost the same as Callister's original. Vegemite now far outsells Marmite and similar spreads in Australia. In New Zealand it was produced for over 50 years, but production ceased as of August 2006, and the New Zealand version of Marmite remains successful there.

  Ownership changed hands more than once. After Walker's death the brand sat with the American company Kraft Foods, and later with Mondelez International, the name Kraft Foods Inc. took from 2012. In January 2017 the Australian Bega Group bought it in a US$460,000,000 agreement, as part of acquiring most of Mondelez's Australia and New Zealand grocery and cheese business.

  The purchase returned the brand to Australian ownership, close to a century after a chemist in Melbourne first turned brewery waste into a paste.

  5052536568