Marmite starts as the spent yeast left over from brewing beer. Salt makes the yeast cells digest themselves, the husks are sieved out, and what remains is a thick brown paste full of natural glutamates. The science of the jar, in plain English.
Marmite Articles
Explore our collection of articles about Marmite, Britain's most divisive spread.
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Why Marmite is made in Burton: how the spread became a Midlands accident
Marmite is made in Burton-on-Trent for one practical reason: it was the brewing capital of Britain, with roughly a quarter of the nation's beer and a mountain of spare yeast. The jar exists because of the pint, and it always has.
How Marmite was invented, by a German chemist and a Burton brewery
Justus von Liebig was one of the most important nineteenth-century chemists, a founder of modern organic chemistry, the namesake of the Liebig condenser still found in every undergraduate lab, and a serial inventor of food products.
The summer the jars ran dry: Marmite's 2020 yeast shortage
In June 2020 Marmite vanished from shelves in everything but the 250g jar. Pure lockdown logic: the pubs shut, the breweries slowed, and Marmite is made from what is left over when beer is brewed. No pints, no spread.
A short history of Marmite: 1902 to today, in twelve key dates
It begins, as a lot of British food does, with a by-product nobody wanted. In 1902, a small group of investors paid £100 a year to rent a disused malt house in Burton-on-Trent and started a company called the Marmite Food Company Limited. Burton was the centre of the British brewing industry.
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