Margarine

[Arran]

It's not exactly the most glamorous of food products but it deserves recognition for overthrowing butter from being an everyday fridge staple to an occasional product. In 1970 anybody who wanted to tell the world that they were middle class proudly used butter for spreading and baking. They would argue whether English, Danish, or New Zealand varieties were the best. Margarine was an inferior and synthetic product for people who couldn't afford, or were too stingy to buy, butter. A product one would feel guilty showing to a guest in their home.

By the late 1990s it was the norm to find a tub of margarine in the fridge of a middle class household. Butter was no longer a commodity but instead used for special occasions such as certain cake recipes or for spreading on scones at the weekend when the in-laws visit. In the supermarkets the choice of margarines was endless with low fat, sunflower, olive oil based, and extra buttery varieties. Upmarket brands of margarine now cost more than butter. People bought margarine because it was healthier than butter - polyunsaturates was the strapline of margarine manufacturers - or they actually preferred the taste to butter, rather than because it was cheaper than butter.

Over the decades brands of margarines have come and gone. How many do you remember that are no longer on sale?

[CrystalBall]

Re: Margarine

I would say margarines (they morphed into 'low-fat speads') began to take over in the late 1970s, led of course by Flora. The premium polyunsaturate brands like Flora never were that much cheaper than butter and it was the claimed heath benefits enabled them to gain a foothold in the market.

As well as Flora there was Blue Band (this was cheaper than Flora as it was an old skool margarine), and I can also remember Echo margarine for baking and Stork of course which were similar to Blue Band. The Co-op used to do their own version of Flora called Good Life and their was also Outline which was intended for calorie controlled diets. Pura was quite popular in the late 80s/early 90s and was another cheaper alternative to Flora. Delight and St. Ivel Gold were big in the 1990s but Delight disappeared years ago and I have not seen Gold on the shelves recently.

Vitalite is still around but it seems to be Flora and Bertolli that are the market leaders. Pure is good as well and of course all the supermarkets have their own brands which are about the same as Flora and Bertolli but cheaper of course.

[Arran]

Re: Margarine

St. Ivel Gold is no longer in production. There was a butter margarine blend called Golden Churn, renamed Golden Crown, by Kraft but that has long disappeared.

Can you still buy a margarine made with animal fats?

[darren]

Re: Margarine

[darren]

Re: Margarine

[CrystalBall]

Re: Margarine

I doubt that there are any still made with animal fat but I can remember the name Golden Churn. I can also remember Krona in the 1980s - it was advertised on TV quite a lot but did not seem to last long. Maybe the forerunner of St. Ivel Gold and they decided to rename it as the pack design is remarkably similar? Shame about Delight and Gold as both were quite nice - the unsalted Gold that had a silver foil lid with a red cross on it (salted was blue foil with a gold cross) was one of the best tasting I always thought.

[Richard1978]

Re: Margarine

My mum always bought Flora for spreading, & stork for baking.

Clover was one of a few more butter like margarines that came out in the late 1980s.

Lurpak used to have that trombonist mascot.

[Arran]

Re: Margarine

There was a low fat spread called Lätta. It's long since vanished from British supermarkets but I think it's still available in some countries in Europe.

[teepee]

Re: Margarine

Margarine was an inferior and synthetic product for people who couldn't afford, or were too stingy to buy, butter.

Where I grew up everyone definitely fell into the former category so it was a case of cutting your coat according to your cloth, as the saying goes. During the period I'm thinking of, there was not much choice of foodstuffs, so margarine meant Stork or Blue Band - I can't recall there being (m)any other brands. It was pretty gruesome stuff.

[Arran]

Re: Margarine

I doubt that there are any still made with animal fat

Many of the large tub catering margarines were made with animal fats in the 1980s and some were still being sold in the mid 1990s but they have either been discontinued or reformulated to use vegetable fats. They caused a lot of resentment amongst vegetarians and people with special diets.

[CrystalBall]

Re: Margarine

The last margarines to contain animal fat would be the hard block types used in cooking and baking, which is not acceptable in the 2000s. There are not many refiners and dealers of animal fat left in the UK, and those that do still exist have diversified into other areas. Most fish and chip shops still fry in beef dripping and it has some uses in cooking and baking, other than that it has largely been eliminated from our diet.

[Arran]

Re: Margarine

So that's what happened to Krona...

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in ‘brick’ launch

By Marketing Week 23 Aug 1996

Van den Bergh Foods is to launch I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter in a brick shape – like butter packets – in a move that could spell the end of the company’s block margarine, Krona.

I Can’t Believe It’s Not Butter will continue to be sold in tubs, like its main rival, St Ivel’s Utterly Butterly. The alternative shape will position the brand firmly against butter brands such as Anchor and will also put the St Ivel brick-shaped spread Willow under pressure.

Krona has a tiny share of the market, despite making a huge impact when it was launched in the UK in 1978. It was hailed as the first margarine with a buttery taste. Advertising for the brand has been dormant for two years.

An industry insider says: “This is a clever ploy by Van den Bergh to give a margarine brand a butter-like shape and get more space on the shelf.”

Disposing of under-performing brands is seen as a top priority for Unilever, which is undergoing a far-reaching restructure into regional operating units.

No one at Unilever was available for comment.

[CrystalBall]

Re: Margarine

According to The Grocer, St. Ivel Gold was discontinued by Dairy Crest in 2008 as a result of the 'evolving tastes' of consumers, i.e. they were not buying it because they did not like the taste. Delight was a Van den Berghs/Unilever brand and must have been dropped ~2000 as the range was relaunched in 1997 with a major advertising campaign. Obviously it did not work!

[spuggybridge]

Re: Margarine

We always had this in the early 1970's, brings back good memories of a poorer but happier time.

[Arran]

Re: Margarine

It's noteworthy that Stork has repositioned itself in the market as more of a baking or cake making ingredient rather than a spreading margarine.

In the 1970s to the 1990s Stork was perceived as a cheap and low-end margarine whereas people with good taste used Flora or a buttery spread if they weren't using butter.