Vegimite

However, this was unsuccessful and Parwill failed to gain momentum across the country. It would take Fred Walker 14 years of perseverance and a change back to the original Vegemite brand for Australians to embrace what would later become an Australian icon.

Following the successful promotion, the Vegemite brand gained official product endorsement from the British Medical Association in 1939 and began advertising in the British Medical Journal. Medical professionals and baby care experts were even recommending Vegemite spread as a Vitamin B rich, nutritionally balanced food to their patients.

By 1942, exactly twenty years after it was first developed, the Vegemite brand had become a staple food in every Australian home and in every Australian cupboard.

During World War II the Armed Forces were buying Vegemite spread in bulk, due to the product’s nutritional value. Fred Walker’s company had to ration the spread on a per capita basis across Australia in order to meet the demand. It’s well known that absence makes the heart grow fonder, and so the reduced supply of that special Vegemite flavour grew in the hearts of Australians.

In 1954, a trio of bright, energetic youngsters burst into song on radio to a toe-tapping jingle named ‘Happy Little Vegemites’. Two years later, Kraft Foods developed the infectious song into a television campaign, which continued intermittently through to the late 1960s. For the next decade, Australians were informed through advertising of the nutritional benefits of Vegemite spread for people of all ages, and it wasn’t until the dawn of the 1980s when the original ‘Happy Little Vegemites’ commercials, re-mastered and colourised, were broadcast to an entire new generation of Australians.

However, other nationalities have trouble with it they spread it too thick, we only generally use a very small amount yes there are some who use a lot but not many as thick Vegemite is yuck.