Why Is Real Vanilla So Expensive?

a classic case of supply and demand. Much of the world's supply of vanilla beans about is grown in just one place, the island of Madagascar and nearby Reunion. The last few years have seen these islands ravaged by multiple storms like Cyclone and awo in, wrecking thousands of plants and driving prices up to more than six hundred dollars per kilo or around three hundred per pound, which is ten times what the prices were a few years previous.

Although twenty nineteen prices proved to be more stable than the fluctuating rates of was forecast to seat production reduced by which could send costs shooting upward again, but that was predicted before the COVID nineteen pandemic happened, which seems to be sending prices lower. The other major contribution to sky hive and ella prices is the fact that the plant is just difficult to grow. Species of vanilla are members of the orchid family. The bean is the orchids fruit.

It's only able to grow ten to twenty degrees north or south of the equator. The flowers grow on evergreen, climbing stems. The blooming season lasts just a couple of months, with a mere handful of fragile, green, white, or yellow flowers blossoming each day, and each flower only opening for pollination for one single morning before they wither and fall

off the plant. They're so delicate that they're only known pollinators in the wild are species of tiny bees and birds that evolved alongside them in their native Central American habitat. So basically, if you're not growing vanilla in Mexico, and again most vanilla isn't, you have to hand pollinate. The hand pollination process is difficult and requires an experienced person to perform it successfully. Typically it's done by farmers who have been in the vanilla growing game for generations. The

process doesn't end once the beans are harvested either. Freshly harvested vanilla pods are actually pretty bland. The crop must be cooked, sweat dried, and cured in a truly prostincty operation that prevents rotting and allows a number of enzymatic and friendly bacterial processes to develop some two hundred and fifty flavor compounds that we love about real vanilla. From getting to end growth to export, the whole shebang takes a solid year, and that is why vanilla is the

second costliest spice in the world, after only saffron. Ironically, many farmers in Madagascar had moved away from growing this labor intensive crop before Cycloninao made landfall because of low prices for the product. At the same time, consumer interest in real vanilla had started to increase, further exacerbating the supply problem. So is real vanilla worth the price? In baking? Vanilla does a lot more than just make something taste vanilla.

With all those flavor compounds, it can enhance other flavors in sometimes unexpected ways. That said, when a recipe calls for pure vanilla extract, can be tempting to sidestep the authentic but pricey version in favor of the much cheaper imitation stuff, which is typically lab synthesized vanillen. Vanilla is one of those many taste and aroma compounds that's produced when you cure vanilla beans, but there are lots of

other ways to get the same molecule. You can use yeast or bacteria to ferment an oil from cloves or an acid from rice bran fed. One of those things be specialized and often proprietary microorganisms basically poop vanilla. Those sort of products are considered natural vanillen that you can also heat and pressure treat an alcohol that comes from spruce trees to produce vanillen. As of the nineteen nineties, a lot of the world's vanillen was actually a byproduct

of the wood pulp and paper industries. Finally, you can synthesize vanilla in a lab using an oil that's a byproduct of the petroleum industry. Those two, the wood pulp and petroleum versions, are considered artificial vanillen. The petroleum version is the cheapest of a lot by far, especially since wooden paper industries worked to reduce their waste in the two thousands However, if you've heard that some artificial vanilla flavoring comes from the butt glands of beavers, yes, this

is a rumor that's incorrect on multiple levels. First Off, any product derived from an animal would be called natural. Secondly, while it is is true that beavers do produce a sort of vanilla's scented substance in a gland that's near the base of their tails, it's not from their anus, and it's not actually financially viable to milk beaver glands at a rate that would satisfy the world's interest in

vanilla flavoring. The gland secretion, by the way, is called castoreum, and beavers use it to mark their territory and to impress humans by spelling just absolutely lovely. It did see some use in the eighteen hundreds as a perfume ingredient and food additive, during the time when beaver fur was all the rage in fashion and beavers were being hunted in large numbers. It still shows up the fragrance industries sometimes, but it's expensive and uncommon at any rate. The real

vanilla is rare. The vanilla flavoring used in foods we eat, like vanilla ice cream is synthetic. If you can afford to splurge on a few beans, it can be really worthwhile. Though there are simple recipes online for extracting lots of flavor from them. You can even scrape the time reflect black seeds from the pods for use in a special recipe, and then reuse the fleshy husks multiple times, drawing out flavor by steeping them in liquid or storing them in

granulated sugar. Today's episode was written by Aliya Hoyt and produced by Tyler Klang. To learn more about vanilla, check out my podcast about food science and history. It's called Savor. And for more on this and lots of other not so vanilla topics, visit how stuff works dot com. Green Stuff is a production of my heart Radio. For more podcasts in my heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.