Back in the halcyon days of EU membership, a case for 'Remain' was presented upon these very pages. It explored the potentially disastrous consequences of Brexit on our meals. We toyed with the threat of turning our backs on claret, kissing confit de canard goodbye, and bidding farewell to champagne after 23 June. But in my shortsightedness, and in my greed, I failed to predict that Brexit would mark the funeral march of Marmite. Which it nearly did.
Despite a day of utter hysteria, unalloyed panic and bulk buying, #Marmitegate is over. Thank God. To be fair to Brexit, and all who voted for it, no one could have predicted the threat of extinction of our beloved breakfast spread. But lo, the threat came - and what a threat it was.
In case you spent Thursday under a rock, the events unfolded as follows: the pound continued to plummeted in value (this much was expected from Brexit). Consequently, grocery giant Unilever (responsible for brands such as Hellmann’s, PG Tips and, you guessed it, Marmite) reportedly said it wanted to increase product prices by ten per cent. Supermarket chain Tesco reacted badly to Unilever’s intentions, and rebelled by removing Unilever products from its website.
In the clash of the Titans, Graeme Pitkethly, Unilever’s Chief Finance Officer, defended his company’s actions, telling the feverish press that ‘we are taking price increases in the UK. That is a normal devaluation-led cycle.’ This didn’t go down well with the British public and, I rather agree, is not an acceptable justification for the end of breakfast as we know it.
Luckily, the fiasco was resolved before we had to bid a final farewell to the growing up spread you never grow out of, with Unilever thanking the general public for ‘all the love.’ But it wasn’t without hysteria. You wouldn’t have been daft to think that the apocalypse was coming: supermarket shelves were stripped of Marmite, in all its various sizes, as we panic bought in bulk. God only knows what happened to the price-tag of the limited edition Marmite Guinness, Marmite Champagne, Horrid Henry and Perfect Peter Marmite, but it’s safe to say that some Marmite nut somewhere eagerly watched the value of the special pots rise against the weakening of the sterling, £ symbols rolling in his eyes like a fruit machine. Poor Marmite nut.
Punters flocked to online auction site eBay to sell the Marmite from the back of their kitchen cupboards. One such joker has listed a ‘used’ Marmite jar for the grand price of £4m, adding ‘there’s still some left. Otherwise, good condition.’ Unsurprisingly, it received no bids, but the optimistic seller has left it up for grabs despite the thawing of relations between Tesco and Unilever.
As with all modern national crises, #Marmitegate had its own hashtag, and a Twitter following demonstrative of said hysteria. Journalist Rachel Johnson offered her own ‘personal Marmite stocks’ to the general public - er, thanks. In case the Prime Minister did not have enough to worry about (when to trigger Article 50, for example), Downing Street weighed in on the argument, with a spokesperson for Theresa May diplomatically concluding that ‘it’s a decision for companies how they market and sell their products.’ Clearly Hellmann’s does not hold the same position of importance in Number 10’s kitchen as it did under May’s predecessor.
The irony of Marmitegate (quite apart from the fact that we caused it, in our folly) is that Marmite is in fact the perfect example of European co-operation. The yeast used in the spread is left over from breweries in Burton-on-Trent, and was originally sold to the French in cooking pots called Marmites (pronounced mar-meet), as trivia whiz Mark Mason pointed out in amongst the Marmite madness.
But Marmitegate was one tumultuous turn too far. The pound may be collapsing, we may be severed from our former allies with a multi-billion pound divorce settlement pending, comedian Boris Johnson may have a senior cabinet position, but this - this - was a veritable threat to civilisation. For twelve ghastly hours, it looked like we had shot ourselves in the foot, and we’d only have ourselves to blame. Thank goodness Marmite is back on the shelves and we can return to breakfast as we know it.