2012–13 New Zealand Marmite shortage
In November 2011, Sanitarium shut down the sole production line of New Zealand Marmite at its Christchurch factory after a cooling tower at the factory was deemed unsafe, having cracked in the 22 February 2011 Christchurch earthquake and its aftershocks. On 19 March 2012, the company announced that its own stocks of Marmite had run out and the production line was not expected to be running again until July. Some supermarkets reported at the time they had already run out of stock, and there was only a few weeks of stock left in their distribution centres, leading to the dubbing of Marmite as "black gold" and the crisis as "Marmageddon".
Immediately after the announcement, there was reported panic buying of Marmite from supermarkets, and over one hundred auctions for jars of Marmite, new and used, were listed on online auction site TradeMe, with some sellers asking for up to NZ$800 per jar; over 185 times its usual retail price of around $4.25 per 250g jar People were advised to use the spread sparingly, with even Prime Minister John Key admitting he might have to switch to Australian rival Vegemite once his personal supplies had run out. Throughout the shortage Marmite ran a number of marketing campaigns on social media which led to a 2,975% increase in fans and a lot of brand exposure.
In June 2012, it was announced that additional structural damage had been uncovered at the factory, and the proposed July return to production was rescheduled to October. Problems with an unfinished lift at the factory delayed production into 2013.
Sanitarium announced in February 2013 that production had restarted and the factory was in the process of building up stock ready for the return. Marmite returned to New Zealand retailers effective midnight on 20 March 2013, although only the 250g jar size was initially available and many supermarkets imposed a limit of two jars per customer per day to promote fairness and prevent bulk buying. The return to overseas retailers is on now that the New Zealand supply and demand has settled. (x)
