Vegeta (condiment)

Vegeta Product Packaging

Vegeta is a condiment which is a mixture primarily of salt with flavour enhancers, spices and various vegetables invented in 1959 by a Croatian scientist Zlata Bartl, and has become a product sold worldwide.

Vegeta is produced by Podravka, a company from Koprivnica, Croatia, as well as a subsidiary of Podravka in Poland^[1] and two Vegeta licensees from Austria and Hungary. There have been around 50 instances of other companies attempting to reproduce the product.

Vegeta was conceived in 1958 in Podravka's laboratories and professor Zlata Bartl was head of the team that invented it.^[1] The product was first sold in Yugoslavia in 1959 as "Vegeta 40",^[1] and has since become so popular that the production increased by several orders of magnitude. In 1967 Vegeta was first exported to Hungary and the USSR^[1] and is now sold in around 40 countries worldwide.^[1]

There is also a "no MSG added" version for those avoiding monosodium glutamate.^[2]

Ingredients

The ingredients of Vegeta include (according to the 2008 product packaging):

• salt max. 56%
• dehydrated vegetables 15.5% (carrot, parsnip, onions, celery, parsley leaves)
• flavour enhancers (MSG max. 15%, disodium inosinate)
• sugar
• spices
• cornstarch
• riboflavin (for yellow coloring)

References

External links

• Podravka's page on Vegeta