People love personifying things, which is probably why we love these Twitter battles between competitive brands, places and things flaring up on social media every once and a while. And why not? Brands get a chance to gain insight into where they stand with popular opinion.

Today, popular salty spreads have taken their puns and wits to Twitter in a fight to see who’s the number one spread in South Africa — Marmite or Bovril.

It’s an age old question, the salty meat or the veggie extract? Both are delicious on toast, crackers and owned by Bokomo Foods.

Read more: Lion’s Head, Devil’s Peak and Northcliff Hill spark SA’s latest Twitter war

Black Cat Peanut Butter, anywhere?

Subtly so, Twitter account MarmiteSA swung the first virtual blow:



BovrilSA, however, remained bullish, retorting with a sly comment of its own:

The pair went on to point out dietary restrictions and preferences:



Hey @CassperNyovest and @akaworldwide. You guys have so much #beef you could make Bovril for a year! pic.twitter.com/WlmdjH0RNa — Bovril (@bovrilSA) November 28, 2014

We can’t really measure wit (however funny they are), Marmite currently leads with the number of Twitter followers, which stands at 823 next to Bovril’s 756, respectively.

We’ll take a peak at both accounts’ follower counts at the end of the week to see which black jar has the most.

Spread the love and tell us which is your favourite spread!

Update: MarmiteSA today announced itself winner of #BattleOfTheSpreads with a total of 1225 followers on Twitter. BovrilSA, on the other hand, rounded the popularity competition off with 1072 followers.