Vegemite Vegemite Vegemite ( ) is a thick, black, Australian food spread made from leftover brewers' yeast extract with various vegetable and spice additives. It was developed by Cyril Percy Callister in Melbourne, Victoria in 1922. The Vegemite brand was owned by Mondelez International (formerly Kraft Foods Inc.) until January 2017, when it was acquired by the Australian Bega Cheese group in a $460 million agreement for full Australian ownership after Bega would buy most of Mondelez International's Australia and New Zealand grocery and cheese business. A spread for sandwiches, toast, crumpets and cracker biscuits as well as a filling for
Cyril P. Callister was withdrawn from active service on the order of the Minister for Defence and assigned to the Munitions Branch, making explosives in Britain. Following the end of World War I, he married Scottish girl Katherine Hope Mundell and returned to Australia and resumed employment with Lewis & Whitty in 1919. In the early 1920s, Callister was employed by Fred Walker and given the task of developing a yeast extract, as imports from the United Kingdom of Marmite had been disrupted in the aftermath of World War I. He experimented on spent brewer's yeast and independently developed what came to be