As many of you may know, I am something of a Marmite addict. If you don’t know what Marmite is there are plenty of references on the Internet and if you are an Antipodean who is already looking for the comment box so you can tell me that Vegemite is better than Marmite then don’t, I am not talking about Australian Marmite which is completely different than British Marmite so the chances are high that you have never actually tasted proper Marmite otherwise you wouldn’t be talking such nonsense.

Anyway, all that aside, I had been convinced that the Marmite you can buy in Canada, although it is made by the same company and in the same packaging is watered down. It’s the wrong colour for a start. Canadian Marmite looks like diarrhoea and doesn’t have the translucent inner glow of British Marmite. I thought I was going mad, why would there be a difference? Tonight, I came across some old packages of British Marmite I had nicked from a hotel in Norwich in 2003 so I finally had a comparison.

Firstly… Hotel packets of British Marmite:

marmite0

(Yes, I know the sell-by date is 2005, we will ignore that. It’s not like Marmite changes over time).

Now Canadian Marmite:

marmite1

(You can tell it’s Canadian, it has English and French labels, so no cheating here).

Now some anaemic toast:

marmite2

(Yeach, do people really eat toast this colour?)

And now, the Marmite on a knife:

marmite3

I may as well have stopped here really – It’s obvious that they are completely different. In the interests of Science, however…

The Marmite on toast:

marmite4

I have no idea WHY Canadian Marmite is so completely different. It costs pretty much the same in Canada as it does in Britain. It doesn’t taste bad, it’s just a little weaker and you have to spread a lot more; plus there is that whole bodily fluid thing going on with it. People who may claim that the 2003 Marmite is blacker because it is old, well you will just have to trust me. I could have used the British Champagne Marmite which is just as black but that wouldn’t have been like-for-like.

There is no conclusion to this. I just figured that rather than waste a posting ranting about Google I may as well expose this curious Marmite Conspiracy.