Bovril is the trade name of a meat extract use for flavouring soups and stews or for making a beef tea-like drink. Now made by Unilever Foods, it was originally made in 1873 by Scottish entrepreneur John Lawson Johnston in Quebec, as a by-product of tinning beef for the French Army, and called "Fluid beef". It took off after Johnston relocated to London in 1884. Production moved to Burton on Trent, the Staffordshire town famous for brewing and handy for yeast, in 1968. A survey in August 2004 found that 2% of British holidaymakers refused to go away without a jar of Bovril - although 7% felt the same about Marmite. The word is taken from bos, the Latin for ox, and Vril, a word used in The Coming Race by Edward Bulwer-Lytton, published in 1871, to describe the life force, thought of as meaning "electric fluid", and adopted by the Theosophists as well. Bovril, which once claimed to put the "beef in Britain" and described in the United States as "liquid cow", was reported on 19 November 2004 to have abandoned the use of any meat extracts in response to various food scares, including BSE, and fashions. An oddity in the use of Bovril is that, in Malaysia, it is popular stirred into porridge or coffee. However the Malaysian government has become more restrictive about the use of non-halal meat and removing the beef extract allows Bovril to comply with their requirements. The treacle-like substance is now made with savoury yeast. One friend said that he thought that they had replaced the beef with salt.
