Marmite vs Bovril: what is the difference between the two brown jars?

Marmite and Bovril sit next to each other on the same supermarket shelf, both in dark jars, both brown, both salty, both proudly British. People mix them up all the time. They should not, because there is one difference that matters more than all the others: Marmite is made from yeast and is suitable for vegetarians and vegans, while Bovril is made from beef and is not.

That is the headline. Here is the rest.

The quick answer

The big difference: yeast or beef

This is the one to remember. Marmite is a yeast extract, a by-product of brewing beer, which is why it is fine for vegetarians and vegans and why it carries added B12. Bovril is a meat product, a beef extract that began life in the 1870s as “Johnston’s Fluid Beef”, invented by a Scottish butcher named John Lawson Johnston to help feed Napoleon III’s army during the Franco-Prussian War. The name is a small piece of Victorian showmanship: “Bo” from the Latin for ox, and “Vril” borrowed from a popular 1871 science-fiction novel about a master race powered by a mysterious energy called Vril.

There is one wrinkle worth knowing, because it confuses people. For a short period in the mid-2000s, between 2004 and 2006, Unilever reformulated Bovril without beef, using yeast extract instead, which briefly made it vegetarian. In 2006 they put the beef back. So if you remember Bovril being vegetarian once, you are not imagining it, but today’s Bovril is beef again. If you want the meat-free option, it is Marmite.

How you actually use them

The other real difference is what you do with the jar.

Marmite is a spread. Its natural home is hot buttered toast, with the occasional outing into cooking for a savoury lift. Bovril’s traditional life is as a drink: a spoonful in a mug of hot water, the classic thing to cup your hands around at a cold football match. It is also spread and cooked with, but the hot-drink ritual is what Bovril is for in a way Marmite never has been. Nobody is making a mug of hot Marmite at half time.

What they have in common

For two products that are chemically opposite, they share a surprising amount. Both are intensely savoury British brown pastes built on the nineteenth-century food science of the German chemist Justus von Liebig, who showed that yeast and meat could be concentrated into nourishing extracts. Both became staples of British life and the British Empire. And both are owned by Unilever, which means both are part of the same “Historic British Brands” parcel now being sold to the American company McCormick, alongside Colman’s. If you are following the Marmite sale story, Bovril is travelling in the same crate.

So which should you choose?

It is not really a contest, because they answer different questions. If you want something to spread on toast, or you are vegetarian or vegan, or you want the B12, it is Marmite. If you want a hot, beefy, restorative drink on a freezing afternoon, it is Bovril, and Marmite cannot do that job. They are not rivals so much as cousins who went into different trades.

For the closer rivalry, the one that actually causes arguments, you want Marmite versus Vegemite, where both jars are yeast extract and the fight is real.

Quick answers

Is Bovril the same as Marmite? No. Marmite is yeast extract (vegetarian and vegan). Bovril is beef extract (not vegetarian).

Is Bovril vegetarian? Not now. It was briefly, from 2004 to 2006, when Unilever made it with yeast extract, but the beef was reinstated in 2006.

Can you spread Bovril like Marmite? Yes, you can spread it on toast, but it is traditionally drunk as a hot beef drink, which is not something you would do with Marmite.

Are Marmite and Bovril made by the same company? Yes, both are Unilever brands, and both are part of the food business being sold to McCormick.