'Fanatic' Vegemite lover Peter Crohan helps push for dedicated museum near Beaufort

Peter Crohan drove from his home in the Dandenong Ranges to Beaufort, near Ballarat, to donate his large collection of Vegemite memorabilia to kickstart the establishment of the museum in honour of the savoury spread.

Vegemite inventor Cyril Callister was born in nearby Chute and Beaufort resident Liza Robinson wants a permanent museum to showcase his life and achievements.

"I think it is a huge drawcard," she said. "There are people out there who will travel to come. It is quite unique.

"There are people who are really quite fanatic about Vegemite."

Food technologist Cyril Callister was born in 1893 in Chute near Beaufort.

In 1923 he was appointed to a small food company to develop a yeast-extract spread for retail sale, a product that was known overseas but no information was available about the process in Australia.

Callister developed Vegemite and it was placed on the market in 1924.

He later worked in developing processed cheese and led a team in producing rations for service men and women in World War II.

Ms Robinson established the Cyril Callister Foundation three years ago in partnership with Mr Callister's grandson Jamie Callister, who has written a book about his grandfather.

The foundation's long-term goals are to establish a permanent museum and to provide science scholarships for regional students to attend Federation University, where Mr Callister received a scholarship in 1910.

While COVID-19 lockdowns set-back museum plans, Ms Robinson is preparing to launch a pop-up museum in Beaufort, kick-started by Mr Crohan's donations.

Mr Crohan heard about the plans for a Vegemite museum while watching ABC television show Backroads which featured Beaufort in January 2019.

He said he had been thinking for some time about selling his collection of memorabilia that filled an entire room in his house, but was set on donating it to the museum after seeing the show.

"It is a perfect way for my collection to end up shared with other people," he said.

Mr Crohan's obsession with Vegemite started as a child, eating it every day after school and he still enjoys it almost every day.

"If I don't have it for breakfast, I certainly have it for lunch," he said.

"Even after a good meal, like after Christmas dinner with ham, turkey and pork I was packing up with lovely fresh bread there, I put Vegemite on that just to finish it off."

Mr Crohan's sister Liz worked at Kraft for two decades and would gift him Vegemite promotional items.

One day he received a four-kilogram tin of Vegemite which he finished in a few weeks.

He collected other promotional items himself by sending in tokens and would keep newspaper clippings when Vegemite appeared in the news.

"I had a spare room under the house and built what we call the museum where I displayed the collection," Mr Crohan said.

"It became a bit of a joke in the extended family, 'we'll go and see crazy Uncle Peter and his Vegemite collection."

Mr Crohan shares stories from trips overseas when he took his Vegemite t-shirt and Vegemite samples along with him to share with fellow travellers on tours.

His collection consists of Vegemite pens, socks, t-shirts, caps, jumpers, a rare toaster, cufflinks, badges, platters, posters, plates and more, that now sits in Beaufort with the Cyril Callister Foundation.

Mr Crohan said he was working to convince friends who also had Vegemite memorabilia to donate to the cause.

He said he knew there were many other people out there who are as obsessed with Vegemite as him and he expected they would travel from afar to visit the museum.

"You have seen what the book festival in Clunes does. This just may - with Beaufort - give the township the impetus it needs to promote itself," he said.

"Beaufort needs a bit of a gimmick, for want of a better word."

Ms Robinson has been working hard for many years with a number of other volunteers to boost tourist drawcards in the Pyrenees through the Beaufort Progress Association and the Pyrenees Farm Gate Trail.

Her efforts will create ongoing benefit for the Pyrenees Shire.

The Beaufort bypass, which will take the highway out of town, means people will need a reason to drive in to and stop in Beaufort.

"We have always needed more attractions here in the Pyrenees Shire and now coming out of COVID we need them more than ever before," she said.

"The Beaufort bypass has been delayed but it will eventually happen. This will give another great reason why people should stop into Beaufort."

Ms Robinson is putting a call-out for donations of Vegemite memorabilia to the museum.

She is currently working to launch the pop-up museum which she hopes will help attract funding and further support to establish a permanent museum in time for the 100^th anniversary of Vegemite next year.