Yesterday half a million jars of the popular spread Marmite were on shelves around the country, including at New World Masterton. The production of Marmite was halted last year due to earthquake damage to its Christchurch manufacturing plant.
Grocery buyer Ant Corlett said stores throughout the country were allocated amounts and New World Masterton got 600 units. "We've probably gone through about half of it already," he said at about 11am.
"I wouldn't be surprised if it sells out."
Mr Corlett "was brought up on the stuff" and said about half a dozen people had already asked him where it was.
"We did have someone try to get into the store at two minutes to seven and the first thing they grabbed was Marmite."
Most people knew Marmite would be back on sale yesterday, thanks to news reports and social media, so they were expecting sales. "We've been that long without it."
Two people grabbed jars of Marmite while the Times-Age was interviewing Mr Corlett, and one person opted for Vegemite. A woman bought a jar for her daughter who had been "waiting" for it to go back on sale. Mr Corlett bought himself a jar too. A 250g jar of Marmite was selling at New World yesterday for $4.19.
Sanitarium general manager Pierre van Heerden said 500,000 jars had been made and he hoped that would meet demand.
It was difficult to predict where people would shop so some areas might sell out, he said. "What we will be doing is encouraging our consumers to go online to our Marmite Facebook page to ask people in their areas [who] know the stock in their stores to let everyone know and then we can hopefully spread the joy around." Additional reporting, APNZ
