The slab
In late June, a limited-edition Marmite popcorn slab arrived on supermarket shelves. Imagine a flat bar, roughly the size of a thick chocolate slab, made of caramelised popcorn fused together with a Marmite glaze. You break a piece off and eat it as you would a flapjack.
Stupid idea, on paper. Surprisingly good, in the hand.
Why it works
The popcorn carries the Marmite the same way the Joe & Seph’s popcorn bag carries it (see the article from earlier this autumn), which is by giving the yeast extract a neutral, airy vehicle. The slab format adds a second trick: the Marmite is baked into the surface caramel, so it browns alongside the sugar, picking up Maillard-reaction depth in a way that drizzled Marmite never quite manages.
The result tastes more “popcorn brittle with savoury edge” than “Marmite snack”. The savoury notes sit underneath. The crunch comes first. The umami comes second. The salt is well-judged. The proportion of Marmite to caramel to popcorn has clearly been worked out by someone who has thought about it for more than an afternoon.
Who is it for
Marmite lovers, obviously. Anyone who likes salted caramel and is willing to take the next step into properly-savoury-caramel. Cinema-snack people. People who quite enjoy a snack that is, structurally, a flapjack but tastes nothing like a flapjack.
Not for: the Hate Party, who will recoil from the smell of the wrapper. Anyone who finds the texture of caramelised popcorn unpleasant (it sticks in the teeth like a normal bar of caramel popcorn does).
The format question
Slab snacks are having a moment, mostly on the back of the Dubai chocolate craze of 2024 and the broader “TikTok food” trend of an absurdly photogenic break-and-pull product. The Marmite slab is squarely in that lineage: it is designed to look good when you snap it in half on camera. It also tastes good, which is a fairer bonus than most viral foods can claim.
The limited-edition framing is, I suspect, the brand’s way of testing whether this category works. If it sells out faster than the production runs replace, we will see a second batch by the autumn. If it sits on shelves through July, the slab will quietly disappear and that will be that. I would bet on the second batch.
Where to find it, while you can
The usual suspects. Tesco, Sainsbury’s, Waitrose, Asda. Smaller convenience shops have been carrying it sporadically. Unilever’s official Marmite shop also had a small allocation. Limited editions disappear quickly, so if you see it and you have not tried it, get it.
If you wait a fortnight and they are all gone, do not say I did not warn you.
