Fred Walker

Who was Fred Walker?

Fred Walker was an Australian businessman and founder of Fred Walker & Co. The company is best known for creating Vegemite, a food paste and Australian cultural icon.

Walker was born in Melbourne and won a scholarship to attend Caulfield Grammar School. He worked in the food import and export industry, and founded Fred Walker & Co in Hong Kong in 1903. He served in the Australian Military Forces from 1908 to 1918, before returning to his business. The company began manufacturing Red Feather canned foods and bonox, a beef extract product still produced today, and grew to operate around Australia and in New Zealand.

In 1923, Walker hired chemist Cyril P. Callister to develop a yeast extract product to compete with the similar English product Marmite. Vegemite was first sold in 1924 after Walker's daughter Sheilah selected the winning entry from a public competition to name the product. After poor sales performance, Walker changed the product's name to Parwill before returning to Vegemite. In 1935, customers were given a free jar of Vegemite with every Fred Walker & Co product purchased, and the popularity of the spread grew steadily after this promotion.