Love it or hate it, here’s the meaning of the name.
It’s fair to say Marmite is one of the most divisive food products on the market.
You either hear someone say they absolutely adore it or they detest it with every fibre of their being. There’s rarely an in-between.
Regardless of whether you eat it straight out of the pot with a spoon or pick up pace when you pass its shelf in the supermarket, surely you’ve wondered at some point in your life why it’s actually called Marmite.
The unusual name has remained with the brand since its inception in 1902, when it was first made by accident in a French pot called a marmite – pronounced ‘mar-meet’.
A German scientist by the name of Justus Freiherr Von Liebig realised that the waste product derived from yeast used in brewing beer could be made into a meaty flavoured, vegetarian concentrate.
Von Liebig named the substance after the traditional crockery casserole pot he used to accidentally make it, and it’s also the reason behind why Marmite jars are the shape they are, as they mimic the crockery pot.
There is even an image of a Marmite pot on each tub, as a nod to the first discovery of the spread.
This scientist and professor, considered to be the founder of organic chemistry, was also the first to make and sell bouillon – a meat extract commercially before refrigeration due to it being concentrated.
So not only did he discover what eventually became Marmite, but he developed the process for beef extract and founded a company called Liebig Extract of Meat Company, which eventually trademarked as OXO.
Marmite then actually commercialised the product and so on the unlucky day of Friday, the 13th of June, 1902, Marmite Food Company was born and the long-lasting boom of love and hate started.
The product has had a rich history over the last century or so.
During the First World War, due to the spread being packed in vitamins and minerals -especially Vitamin B1 – Marmite was part of the rations for the troops helping to combat the outbreak of beriberi and other deficiency diseases.
During the Second World War and it had been a standard vitamin supplement for troops, as stated on the Marmite website.
The food item has now become a cult British product and continues to grow.
In a similar story, people have only just recently caught on to the what Tesco stands for.
The supermarket’s title goes back over a century to the son of a Jewish migrant from Poland, who first set the store up.
Jack Cohen began by setting up a stall in Well Street Market in Hackney, East London in 1919. He sold war-surplus groceries initially.
To get his first day’s stock for the stall, he used demobilisation money from the Royal Flying Corp, which he was a part of during World War One.
The name Tesco first came to be as a result of Cohen buying a shipment of tea in 1923 from a man called Thomas Edward Stockwell.
In a nod to his suppliers, the founder combined ‘TES’ with the initial two letters of his surname, culminating in the name that we all recognise today – Tesco.
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After experimenting with his first permanent indoor market stall at Tooting in November 1930, Jack Cohen opened the first Tesco shop in September 1931 at 54 Watling Avenue, Burnt Oak, Edgware, Middlesex.
Within a year, Cohen was the proud owner of a hundred stores, thus cementing the Tesco name on the map.
