VEGEMITE has created a mess with its latest version of the black, salty enigma.

But after 2009's iSnack 2.0 fiasco, and its name change to Cheesybite, My First Vegemite has proved easier to swallow.

And an 11-strong jury of pirates, fairies and caterpillars have endorsed the spread - eating it, toying with it, even wearing it.

The excited kids, aged 2-5, poked fingers - and spoons and colouring pencils - into jars. A couple of littlies turned into tiny tar monsters in the process.

"She's embraced it wholeheartedly, covered almost head to toe," two-year-old Matilda Richards' mum Laura said.

"She even requested a spoon to eat it out of the jar."

And the Kraft crew running the launch were even more excitable, describing it as a new arrival in the Vegemite family.

My First Vegemite is aimed at children aged 1-3, has extra B-vitamins and a toned-down flavour.

The selling point is the salt, though, or relative lack thereof - although Kraft staff don't use the word salt.

Old-time Vegemite has 173 milligrams of sodium in every teaspoon serve. The new one has 43 in its smaller half-teaspoon serve making it half as salty.

Kraft hopes the new product will lift overall Vegemite sales by 5 per cent as parents double up in the cupboard.

With Vegemite sales at 23 million jars a year, that's about a million more jars.

If you stretched those end to end it would go around the world three times.

Spread a little nostalgia: Classic Vegemite ad