An Australia icon has turned 60 years old and the blowout celebrations were just as nutty as expected.
At the Port Melbourne facility, 1 Vegemite Way, Bega Cheese's peanut butter makers gathered to celebrate six decades of the silky smooth spread.
But the big bash is still to come with the centenary of Vegemite to be marked later in the year.
The team behind Bega peanut butter blew out the candles on a cake shaped like the iconic jar last week.
Despite changing corporate owners the peanut butter recipe has stayed the same over generations.
Bega Cheese claims to be the nation's market leader in the buoyant spreads business with a 32 per cent share of the category.
Bega's peanut butter operator Vivienne Rihia has been making the spread in Port Melbourne for 27 years.
"It has been an honour to be a part of Bega Peanut Butter's legacy," Ms Rihia said.
The pantry staple was returned to Australian ownership in 2017 after Bega bought the product from US-owned Kraft.
Bega Cheese has bought the Peanut Company of Australia with its growing regions including the Atherton Tableland near Cairns, Emerald in Central Queensland, Bundaberg and Childers, the South and Central Burnett regions west of Brisbane, and also the Northern Territory.
In July 2017, ASX-listed Bega Cheese expanded its portfolio to include peanut butter, Vegemite and ZoOsh, cornering a $110 million Australian peanut butter market.
"Sixty years of Australia's favourite peanut butter is no small feat! Bega Peanut Butter has earned its place in pantries across the nation," Bega Peanut Butter marketing manager Jess Hoare said.
Bega has been looking for a buyer for the factory where it is made.
Bega Cheese announced last year it wanted to sell the Port Melbourne home of Vegemite and some of its other spreads like its peanut butter and lease the historic building back.
US snack food maker Mondelez (Ritz, Cadbury) sold the Kraft factory, along with its branded products, to Bega for $460 million in 2017.
The former Kraft factory at 1 Vegemite Way in Port Melbourne is in a landmark location it used to share with GM Holden, where its first cars were built.
Bega hoped to make about $150 million from the 36,915sqm factory sale and immediately lease it back on a long-term deal.
Bega wants to free up capital by selling the old factory which helps produce the 22 million jars of the yeast extract made for sale each year.
Most Australian homes are believed to have a jar of Vegemite in the pantry.
Vegemite was invented by chemist C.P. Callister in 1923 when an Australian food manufacturer requested a product similar to British Marmite.
Beaufort in western Victoria is claiming to be the home of Vegemite, opening a part-time museum ahead of the centenary, saying Dr Callister was born in nearby Chute in 1893.
The Fred Walker Company, which would later become Kraft Food Company, hired the young chemist to develop a spread from one of the richest known natural sources in the Vitamin B group - brewer's yeast.
The Port Melbourne factory occupies a six hectare island site in the Fishermans Bend urban regeneration precinct, about 5km from Melbourne's CBD.
