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Founder of the platform, with more than 11 years of experience in marketing within the oils and fats industry.
Necessity is the mother of invention
margarine It is a butter substitute made from vegetable oils. Margarine was invented in France by Hippolyte Mig-Maurice in response to Napoleon III's call for a cheap alternative to butter for French workers and armies in the Franco-Prussian War. After the French government announced an award for anyone who can create a cheap and effective alternative to butter as a result of food shortages. Meg-Maurice took up the challenge and created a product he called “oleo margarine”, based on the Latin word “olive oil” and the Greek word for “pearl”. Margarine is essentially an emulsifier of water in fat, produced by intensive processing of refined vegetable oil and water. Olmargarine, which consisted of beef fat mixed with milk, was patented in 1869. Dutch entrepreneurs at Juergens & Company, an old butter merchant, patented margarine and encouraged its use. The production of margarine was limited by the availability of beef fat until 1902 when Wilhelm Norman in Germany patented a process for hardening oils by hydrogenation. This process has greatly expanded the market opportunities for vegetable oils and the availability of margarine.
Invading the US market
By the centenary of margarine in 1969, margarine production in parts of Europe and the United States began to rival butter production. Margarine was patented in New York in 1871, paving the way for a massive spread of the product in the United States. In 1873, the Olio Margarine Manufacturing Company was opened in New York and quickly expanded to 37 plants across the country. By the year 2000, margarine had become the preferred choice for many people as table fat, whether for health or economic reasons. Where this has been the case, it has also served as a versatile spread in homes and in the food service industry for preparing foods, sauces, and baked goods.
When margarine began to appear in American markets towards the end of the nineteenth century, many consumers were already dissatisfied with the taste, quality and reliability of traditional butter. Butter was usually produced on small farms, and its quality varied greatly depending on the equipment, livestock and skill of the farmer. As historian Jerry Strey writes in the book “The Oleo Wars: Wisconsin's Battle Against Satanic Spread”: “The quality of public butter in Wisconsin was so bad that Chicago markets knew it as 'Western tallow, 'and it was sold as a lubricant, not for human consumption.”
Although margarine provided a cheap and consistent alternative to this “Western tallow,” it was initially met with some skepticism. Many consumers were annoyed by the natural pale white color of margarine, and feared that the spread was the “poor food” they should not serve to their families and guests.
Turning from white to yellow
By the late 1880s, manufacturers started coloring margarine yellow to make it look more like butter. Margarine was promoted in ads as “made in space in the Milky Way galaxy” and “made especially for lovers of good butter.” Margarine quickly became useful to consumers who didn't see much difference in taste or appearance, but liked the consistent quality and cheaper price.
In 1881, 34 million pounds of margarine were sold in the United States. That figure jumped to 126 million in 1902. The rise of margarine was so remarkable that one of the greatest novelists of the nineteenth century had to comment on it: in his 1883 memoir “Life on the Mississippi River,” Mark Twain described hearing an enthusiastic margarine salesman call out: “You will soon see the day, when you will not be able to find an ounce of butter to bless yourselves.”
How has the dairy industry responded?
Not surprisingly, the dairy industry has not reacted well to this new competition. Margarine arrived on American shores at a time when the dairy industry was moving from small, local farms to large industrial operations concerned with continuous growth and the removal of competition.
With margarine threatening butter, the dairy industry has launched an all-out attack, questioning the authenticity and quality of margarine and trying to censor the language used to promote it. “In the United States, social emotions and values combined with economic self-interest to create animosity towards margarine, evolved into a long-term attempt to suppress it,” writes Strey.
In an 1890 cartoon from the “Rural New Yorker” magazine, margarine was portrayed as a monster with three heads — one head for cottonseed oil, one head for glucose, and another head for the public fraud represented by “oleo margarine” — and farmers and townspeople had to gather around it to defeat it.
The dairy industry and its political allies have tried to fuel concerns about butter substitute, portraying margarine as something fraudulent, harmful to health and threatening the traditional lifestyle.
However, margarine is still a popular product among manufacturers and consumers to this day. The production of butter is not sufficient for the demand that exists in addition to its technological benefits in the food industry.
