Marmite may be a classic – but this cheaper rival is just as good

Love it or hate it, Marmite is thoroughly embedded in British culture. It has been around since 1902, and a fixture not only on breakfast tables but in all sorts of recipes, most famously Nigella’s Marmite spaghetti, a joyfully Britalian culinary masterpiece. 

Jonathan Agnew, the nation’s favourite cricket commentator, is a fan, taking a jar with him wherever he travels. The intensely savoury flavour has found a place in his kitchen too, as he told me over the phone, his familiar dulcet tones as happy talking about Marmite as silly mid-off. 

“Since discovering a little bit about cooking I’ve been incorporating it in some unusual places,” Agnew explains. “Mashed potato. Macaroni cheese. Omelettes. But particularly mashed potato.” 

Agnew is magnanimous on the subject of the pimped-up Marmites – chilli, truffle and matured “XO” are recent additions to the Marmite family. “Some work better than others, but as long as Marmite is at the core, it’s OK,” he says. As for other yeast extracts, “I’ve tried Vegemite and I don’t like it. A listener very kindly sent me a jar of peanut butter Marmite but I haven’t opened it yet. To be honest, I wasn’t aware of there being other brands at all, I just thought Marmite was Marmite and that was the end of it.”

Not a bit of it. I tried nine different yeast extracts – not all supermarkets bother with copycats, but Lidl, Aldi, Sainsbury’s, Asda and Tesco came up trumps. Alongside these I tasted regular Marmite, low-salt Marmite, wholefood-shop favourite Meridian (good but too expensive to merit “thrifty” status) and a googly from Down Under: Vegemite.

First off, what is Marmite anyway? “The scrapings off the bottoms of beer barrels,” says my mother dismissively (she’s Team Marmalade). It turns out she is right – sort of. Yeast extract, it transpires, is a by-product of the beer industry, as every time a batch is brewed the yeast grows sevenfold, leaving a surplus. For Marmite it is shipped to the factory in Burton upon Trent, where it is heated to 95C, hot enough to kill the yeast and break it down. A clear brown yeast extract broth can then be strained off, leaving behind a cloudy porridge made up of yeast cell walls. It’s then boiled down to make the tarry brown spread we are familiar with. 

Marmite has a noticeably smoother texture than the others I tried; stickier and more elastic. A childhood game was to dollop a bit of Marmite on the side of a plate and whack it with a knife until it turned from treacly brown to creamy white. More interesting than adult conversation, at the time anyway. 

The other versions (with the exception of Vegemite) are runnier, with a faintly grainy quality, ranging from a suspicion of powderiness to full-on grit. Marmite is tight-lipped about how it achieves this super-refined quality, referring only to a “polishing process”. 

A perusal of the ingredients labels revealed another difference. While the copycat versions contain just yeast extract, salt, and added vitamins, Marmite includes a proportion of vegetable juice concentrate. This could be why it has a more rounded flavour. It’s also more concentrated, stronger tasting, with a characteristic astringent bite. That’s particularly true with the regular Marmite – the lower salt version is a little mellower. But with both, you need less on your toast than the own-brand yeast extracts.  

This concentration has other issues, making it really gluey and tarry. A reader, Keith Thirle from Hampshire, wrote to the paper recently, noting that Marmite has become too thick and sticky to spread well. Keith had already asked Marmite what was going on – their response was that it is due to variations in the yeast extract from the brewing process and not due to a change in production. 

He’s not alone in sensing this, and other readers tell me they have switched to supermarket brands which are easier to coax into an even layer over the butter. They are also a bit milder in flavour, which you may prefer, but that may translate to a tendency to use more. Sadly for thrifty shoppers, this means the cost saving is likely to be minimal. 

With Keith’s comments in mind, and in the interests of thoroughness, I included a few “doubles” in my tasting, specifically the Marmite, Asda and Tesco brands, choosing jars with different batch numbers. Marmite was indistinguishable from its twin, as was Asda’s, but I did detect a variation in the Tesco versions, one being slightly more savoury – and less runny – than the other. 

It might simply be that one jar is much older than the other. This is officially the case with Marmite’s XO version, which is darker and stickier after an extra “maturation” time. The initials are glossed as standing for “extra old” on the label, but given that Marmite is often mentioned in the context of umami flavour – it’s the British answer to miso paste – I wondered whether some reference to the reassuringly expensive Cantonese condiment is intended. Certainly XO is 30 per cent more expensive than the standard brew.

In fact my tastings have got me thinking: can I try “maturing” a cheaper jar at home? I can’t be the only person to have retrieved a long-forgotten jar of Marmite at the back of the cupboard, and found it to be black and gummy, much like said XO. I’ve certainly got enough leftover jars to give this a go – that’s if I don’t use them all up making mountains of Aggers’s excellent mash.

The value-for-money taste test

Vegemite 

£2.20 for 220g (£1/100g), Ocado 

Matte and solid, not tarry or stretchy. Looks like chocolate spread but tastes weirdly plasticky. Not nice if you’re looking for a Marmite flavour. 

Result: 1 out of 5

Asda Yeast Extract

£2.10 for 240g (87.5p/100g), Asda 

Grainy top, thinner than others, and medium dark. It has a slightly powdery texture and the salty flavour hits you before the savoury. Still enjoyable on toast. 

Result: 2 out of 5

Maribel Yeast Extract 

£1.89 for 240g (79p/100g), Lidl 

Very similar ingredients to the Aldi version. Although it looks much the same, runny and shiny, it has a slightly gritty texture and the flavour is salty. 

Result: 2 out of 5

Tesco Yeast Extract 

£2 for 225g (89p per 100g), Tesco 

The first jar I tried was very runny – the runniest of all – and very dark, with a slightly grainy layer on top. The texture was grainy too, and it had a weak flavour. I tasted salt, and not that much else. My second jar tasted different, less salty and quite rounded – still a bit runny but much preferred by all the tasting gang.

Result: 3 out of 5

Meridian Yeast Extract with Salt

£5 for 340g (£1.47 per 100g), Ocado 

Tacky, with a slightly dull, mid-brown colour, However, there was a well-rounded flavour, a proper Marmite-y bite, and it’s pretty smooth, too. Loses marks for value, though. 

Result: 3 out of 5

Grandessa Mighty Yeast Extract 

£1.89 for 240g (79p/100g), Aldi 

There’s a dark grainy layer on top, and it’s a honey-textured boot-polish brown underneath. Mellow flavour, and only a hint of graininess. 

Result: 4 out of 5

Sainsbury’s Reduced Salt Yeast Extract 

£2 for 220g (89p/100g), Sainsbury’s 

Tarry, quite malty, and milder than its Marmite counterpart. There’s a touch of a powdery, grainy texture, which you don’t notice on toast. 

Result: 5 out of 5

Marmite Reduced Salt Yeast Extract Spread

£3.35 for 250g (£1.34 for 100g), Sainsbury’s 

Brown, translucent and elastic, this reduced-salt version of Marmite is very strong tasting – perhaps even too strong – but that just means you don’t need to use as much. Doesn’t lose any flavour despite its lower salt content. 

Result: 5 out of 5

Marmite  

£3.25 for 250g (£1.30/100g), Tesco 

Mid brown with an elastic, drooping consistency. The flavour is very strong, but rounded. It does well on value as you need less. The real deal.  

Result: 5 out of 5

Have you noticed the same thing about Marmite as Keith Thirle? Have you tried any alternatives? Please join the discussion in the comments below.