Overview
- Food Unwrapped, highlighted by regional outlets Monday, filmed inside the Burton-on-Trent site that has produced the spread since 1902.
- The programme showed spent brewer's yeast pumped into vats, heated to about 95C to break the cells, then spun in a centrifuge before evaporation thickened the extract into a paste.
- The yeast extract forms the nutrient base of the spread, which also includes salt, barley, celery and vegetable juice concentrates with added B vitamins such as B12.
- Viewers reacted with surprise or disgust, with some saying they cannot eat the spread after learning it comes from surplus brewing yeast.
- The coverage explains an industrial reuse chain in which breweries sell excess yeast to extract makers, who turn the by-product into a finished food.