1. Margarine

Margarine is a fatty food manufactured in order to resemble butter in appearance, flavour, colour, texture and composition except that the fat is not principally milk fat. Margarine was invented by Hippolyte Mege-Mouriès in 1869 in France in response to need for a satisfactory butter substitute, especially for military personnel. Mege-Mouriès mixed beef fat and artificial gastric juice with salt and milk. The resultant product had pearly luster when chilled. Mege - Mouriès named this product margarine after the Greek "margarite", or pearl-like. He described the product as a variety of true butter, later as an artificial butter, butterine or margarine. Manufacture and sale of margarine was permitted by April 12, 1872, by action of the Council of Hygiene of Paris, who authorized its sale if not described as butter. Margarine manufacture expanded throughout Europe in the period 1872-4. The first American patent for margarine was granted in December 1873.

The manufacturing process evolved rapidly. Early products were formulated with artificial gastric juice and cow udder extracts. These were abandoned in favour of pasteurization of milk, dry chilling of the fat mixture and texturizing. Pasteurization of milk enabled culturing techniques to be used that improved the product flavour by more closely approaching butter flavour. Early manufacture of margarine by wet chilling of the fatty mass was replaced by dry chilling using a drum chill roll.

The history of margarine technology and formulation is a series of incremental improvements in composition and process technique. Following its invention, the major dates in margarine development are: