Vegemite

choi

Michelle Innis, Australians to Welcome Home Their Vegemite, a Yeasty Staple in Exile. New York Times, Jan 20, 2017.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/ ... ez-bega-cheese.html

Note:
(a) "Next to kangaroos * * * perhaps nothing else evokes Australian stereotypes like Vegemite. The yeasty spread, beloved there [Australia] and virtually nowhere else, is considered such a national nosh that some people say it is a must-eat on Australia Day."
(i) nosh (n): "British informal
1 : [mass noun] food
1.1 North American [count(able) noun] a snack or small item of food"
https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/nosh
(ii) Australia Day
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australia_Day
(national day; "Celebrated annually on Jan 26, it marks the anniversary of the 1788 arrival of the First Fleet of British Ships at Port Jackson" (which includes Sydney Harbor) to establish the first penal colony in Australia)

(b) "But in a truth as bitter to some as its taste [that is, Vegemite tastes somewhat bitter], Vegemite has for decades been American-owned — until now.  On Thursday [Jan 19], Mondelez, the Illinois company that owns Vegemite, said it would sell the spread to Bega Cheese Limited, an Australian dairy company, among other brands for nearly $350 million."

Since 2012, Mondelez is based in Deerfield, Illinois -- a village 25 miles north of Chicago.
(c) "The secret, its fans say, is to spread it very thin. * * * 'I love it,' said Matthew Tuxen, a 17-year-old student from Sydney's northern suburb of Mosman, who eats it on toast — no butter * * * Its high salt content makes its dietary value questionable * * * Vegemite came to be in 1923 when the Fred Walker Company of Australia, which would later become Kraft Food Company, set out to create a spread from brewer's yeast. The name for what was originally labeled 'pure vegetable extract' was chosen in a national competition, according to the product’s website."
(i) Fred Walker (entrepreneur)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Walker_(entrepreneur)
(1884 – 1935; Australian; Walker began a partnership with American businessman James L Kraft to manufacture processed cheese in 1925, and by 1930 was chairman of Kraft Walker Cheese Co, a separate company from Fred Walker & Co but managed by the same staff)
(ii) Our Founders. Mondelez, undated
www.mondelezinternational.com/about-us/our-founders
(Fred Walker: "In 1922, Fred hired a young chemist to develop a spread from one of the richest known natural sources of vitamin B – brewers yeast. Once the new product was ready, he held a competition inviting the public to name the new spread – the winning name was Vegemite.  Early in 1926, Fred Walker traveled to the United States to visit JL Kraft -- the result was an agreement with the Kraft Cheese Company that resulted in the creation of the Kraft-Walker Cheese Company, Limited in Australia")

Take notice that Kraft-Walker Cheese Company, Ltd (1935-1950) was in Australia, not in US.