Margarine
Margarina
- Date
- 1869 · confidence high
- Place
- Vincennes (Paris), France
- Credited to
- Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès
- People
- 👤 Hippolyte Mège-Mouriés1817–1880
- Field
- Life & health
What it is
A butter substitute made from beef tallow, skimmed milk and water, created in response to a competition set by Napoleon III to feed the army and the poor. The first mass synthetic food.
1869 French patent; industrial production in the Netherlands from 1871.
What it led to
- Low-cost industrial food and trade wars with the dairy industry
- The hydrogenation of vegetable oils (1902) and trans fats
- The Jurgens and Van den Bergh companies, the origin of Unilever
Built on
- Canning (Appert method and tin can)1804-1810
- Mechanical vapour-compression refrigeration1834-1856
- Chevreul's fat chemistry
- Tin canning
Made possible
- Hydrogenation of vegetable oils (solid fats)1901
- Hydrogenated oils
- Processed foods
- Unilever