Where has margarine gone?

Where has margarine gone? In the 1970’s when I taught cooking in east London we only used margarine and the Stork home economists came into school and showed us the all in one cake and sauce. Now Stork is called Stork original spread and is labelled 70% Vegetable Fat Spread.

Have I missed something?!!! Stork is just labelled Perfect for Pastry or Perfect for cakes.

These are the ingredients

• Vegetable Oils in varying proportions (70%) (Rapeseed, Palm1, Sunflower),
• Water,
• Salt (1.4%),
• Buttermilk (Milk),
• Preservative (Potassium Sorbate),
• Acid (Citric Acid),
• Emulsifier (Mono and Diglycerides of Fatty Acids),
• Flavourings,

So you can’t buy margarine in a shop any more so what fat am I supposed to suggest as a butter alternative without advertising the brand???

There is a European Margarine Association  telling me that margarine has been around for nearly 150 years and that I must visit www.spreadthewordaboutmargarines.org

They say ‘Margarine comes in 3 forms: soft and spreadable margarines – in a tub, liquid cooking blends – in a bottle, and hard blocks that are great for baking – in a wrapper.’ But type ‘margarine’ into a supermarket website and no products are listed as margarine.

An article in The Guardian in 2017 says ‘Sales of margarine and spreads, once regarded as a healthier alternative to butter, have been in long-term decline in Europe and the US – margarine sales have dropped 12%.

Margarine was invented in France in 1869 after Napoleon III offered a reward to anyone who could produce a cheaper and longer-lasting alternative to butter. Hippolyte Mège-Mouriès, a chemist, created margarine and eventually sold his product to Jurgens, a Dutch company that went on to become part of Margarine Unie and then Unilever.

The firm’s Stork brand was launched in 1920 and was the subject of famous 1970s and 1980s advertising campaigns, with comedians Sir Bruce Forsyth and Leslie Crowther, the latter fronting TV taste tests in supermarkets.

Margarine and Spreads Association  but that leads me to The Art of Home Cooking which is an ancient Stork book – so has Margarine disappeared?