Emperor Napoleon III took great interest in the production and improvement of the French food supply. He was particular interested in finding a cheap butter substitute to conform as closely as possible to butter’s physical and chemical characteristics. Margarine was invented in France in 1869 by the French chemist-turned-business man, Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès.
The word ‘margarine’ was first used by Mège’s teacher, Michael Eugene Chevreul, around 1813.
Margarine was cheap, as the French government had hoped, but the early variants were not flavorful. Some governments required margarine to be white so consumers would not mistake it for butter.
Production started at Poissy in about 1872-73. In 1889 Otto Monsted established England’s first margarine plant in an old hat factory in Godley, Manchester. Demand was so great that he had to erect a new factory in Southall near London.
In England, margarine which was imported from Holland was first sold under the name Butterine. This name was dropped in 1887 after parliament passed the first Margarine Act.
The Mège patent in the USA, issued in May 1874, was purchased by the United States Dairy Co., which hired Henry A. Mott to improve in Mège’s method. A number of US margarine patents were issued in the following years. Many of these suggested the use of lard or vegetable fats instead of oleo oil.
In 1902 Normann announced that he had hardened a liquid fat buy hydrogenating it with a catalyst. After the invention of hydrogenization, in the 1930s, German processor created margarine from cottonseed, soybean, safflower, canola, sunflower, palm, peanut and other vegetable fats, thus making a product that was acceptable to vegetarians.
In 1947, margarine manufacturers replaced coal-tar dyes with beta carotene from carrots, a colorant that received homemaker’s approval.
In 1938 margarine makers added vitamins A and D to their product. This coupled with other improvements in production made margarine a more tasty product.
History of margarine
