Marmite Versus Vegemite: A Very Kiwi Debate

I wrote this in 2016 or 2017 during the two years I lived in New Zealand. Some details — prices, hours, what’s open — may have changed, but the experience and my love for this place haven’t.

We went on vacation to Australia a few years ago — just a few days into the trip we stopped at a grocery store for supplies and found a jar of Vegemite. I had read about it when preparing for the trip and me and my mom and the kids were excited to try it. I grabbed a spoon, dug it into the jar, and put it in my mouth. And after I finished coughing and sputtering and wiping my watery eyes, I did what every good stepmom does and tried to get the rest of the family to do the same thing — telling them it was great and they’d love it.

Vegemite is what many would call an acquired taste. It’s a strong, very salty paste made from leftover brewer’s yeast mixed with vegetable and spice additives. You most definitely don’t eat it by the spoonful. A few weeks after my first try, we went camping in the Outback with a few Australian families and one of them ordered Vegemite on toast. After following their lead, I learned the most common way of eating it — lightly smeared on a piece of toast with butter. Much much better.

Now that I’m living in NZ, Vegemite is pretty common and I eat it somewhat regularly. If you go to a bed and breakfast, odds are they will serve toast with Vegemite and butter with the morning meal.

Marmite is similar to Vegemite but worth knowing separately. The original Marmite was created in Britain in 1902, but New Zealand Marmite has been manufactured here since 1919 under licence from the British company, using a modified recipe that includes sugar and caramel — making it milder and slightly sweeter than either the British version or Vegemite. Wikipedia It’s only sold under the Marmite name in New Zealand, Australia, and the Pacific Islands — everywhere else it’s sold as NZ-Mite to avoid trademark conflicts with the British version. Vegemite, by contrast, is more intense, bitter and yeast-forward America’s Test Kitchen — which is why the debate between the two is so fierce here.

Most of the people I’ve talked to prefer Vegemite even though it is an Aussie product. But I’d guess that many Kiwi households — like mine — have both in the cabinet.

The depth of feeling around Marmite only really became clear to me when I learned about Marmageddon. When the Christchurch earthquake damaged the Marmite factory in 2011, stocks ran out and jars sold on TradeMe for up to $800 New Zealand dollars — 185 times the normal retail price! Even Prime Minister John Key admitted he might have to switch to Vegemite once his personal supplies ran out. They called it Marmageddon. That is how seriously New Zealand takes its Marmite.

I just found the most awesome commercial for Marmite — too funny. Marmite Commercial – First Date