Kraft cheese and Vegemite!

Few foods have had the impact on the tastes of Australian society as Kraft cheese and Vegemite – and they were both manufactured in what is now Southbank at the Kraft factory in Riverside Drive.

Next door was the Allen’s Sweets factory with its massive neon sign – but that’s a story for another time. A rich collection of aromas floated across the suburb but were not always welcome on a hot day!

The driving force in production of Kraft and Vegemite was entrepreneur Fred Walker, who began to manufacture the beef extract called Bonox in 1918, followed by the yeast extract with famous name of Vegemite in 1923. Sales of the product increased steadily, aided in 1935 when customers were given a free jar of Vegemite with every Fred Walker & Co. product purchased.

Its popularity boomed during World War Two when it was included in soldiers’ ration packs due to its high vitamin B content.

And, when television arrived in the mid-1950s, who could forget seeing and hearing bright little kids marching and singing along to “we are happy little vegemites!” The jingle has been remade and updated a couple of times but over a century has been woven into Australian culture.

The product is not to everyone’s taste, but the company produces 20 million jars of Vegemite every year. This amount of Vegemite could cover a billion slices of bread!

Happily, the company is now back in Australian control and there is even a street in Port Melbourne (formerly Cook Street) called Vegemite Way, and all future jars of Vegemite will be emblazoned with a special address.

“Kraft cheddar cheese” was initially processed in 1925 in Maffra Street, South Melbourne, under the control of Fred Walker, before moving to Riverside Drive in Southbank. Many customers enjoyed the fact that the cheese could be sliced and did not need to be refrigerated.

Walker was very conscious of the welfare of his staff, and they enjoyed a range of benefits while working for him. He established a social club, allowed time for morning tea breaks from manufacturing, provided first aid and canteen facilities, and introduced modern work systems that increased employee productivity. 

Following his death in 1935, the company was created to form the Kraft Walker Cheese Company Ltd, and in 1950 the company became Kraft Foods Limited. 

The company continued the production of some of these icons of Australian food and is enjoying a popular boom in cheese toasties. 

But the buildings along Riverside Drive did not survive the transformation to Southbank in early 1990, and few of the older industrial buildings were identified for retention as part of Melbourne’s urban renewal program. •