The cubes are broken up and used as flavouring in meals or gravy or dissolved into boiling water to produce a bouillon.

Liebig's Extract of Meat Company (Lemco; established in the United Kingdom) promoted it, starting in 1866.

Since the cost of liquid Oxo remained beyond the reach of many families, the company launched a research project to develop a solid version that could be sold in cubes for a penny.

During World War I, 100 million Oxo cubes were provided to the British armed forces, all of them individually hand-wrapped.

In the 1920s, the Liebig's Extract of Meat Company acquired the a Wharf on the south bank of the river Thames in London.

As styles and tastes changed, Oxo moved to a more up-to-date format with Dennis Waterman as the sole face of the brand in the mid '70s.

On 11 November 2014, it was announced that a 1984 Oxo advert starring Lynda Bellingham would be screened on Christmas Day as a tribute to the actress, who had died of colon cancer the previous month.