The cost of vanilla beans has been increasing due to the labor-intensive nature of producing and harvesting them, the impact of unfavorable weather, and customer demand for items made naturally with vanilla beans.
A visit to the baking aisle may provide a significant dilemma for low-income customers. If 4 ounces (119 milliliters) of genuine vanilla extract can be purchased for about $20, why not spend less than $5 for the same amount of counterfeit vanilla flavor?
According to economists, cheaper pricing is not likely to occur very soon. In this blog article, let’s discuss some of the potential reasons why vanilla is so expensive.
Harvesting and Growing Vanilla Beans Requires a Lot of Work
Although vanilla is a native of Mexico and belongs to the orchid family, Madagascar and the island of Réunion are the world’s two biggest producers of vanilla. The blossom of the greenish-yellow orchid is where the narrative of the vanilla bean starts.
The vanilla flower only blooms once a year, and only then may vanilla beans be produced. One fruit or bean pod will be produced by one flower. The flower only lasts a day, so it needs to be manually pollinated as soon as possible to prevent it from wilting and dying.
The beans take six weeks to reach their maximum size after pollination and another nine months to mature. It will take a further six months for the green, mature beans that were hand-picked to develop the distinctive vanilla flavor and aroma.
One cannot speed up the curing process because it takes a long time. Following their harvest, the seed pods are each given a hot water soak, placed in the sun during the day, and then, while still warm, covered with blankets and left to sweat for the entire night.
One pound of cured vanilla beans requires five to seven pounds of green vanilla beans or roughly 300 manually pollinated blooms. There are many reasons why vanilla is valuable; some of them are below. Madagascar Vanilla Beans Exporter can also help with bulk vanilla production and supply.
Due To the Weather
This is a typical example of supply and demand. The island of Madagascar is home to around 80% of the world’s supply of vanilla beans. The island has been devastated by numerous storms in the past few years. It has destroyed thousands of plants and pushed prices up to more than $600 per kilogram.
According to flavorings manufacturer FONA, 2020 was predicted to witness a 25% decline in production, which might send expenses skyrocketing again. Even if 2019 pricing proved to be more stable than the erratic rates of 2017. However, that was anticipated prior to the COVID-19 epidemic, which appears to be causing prices to decline.
Due To the Growing Process
The fact that growing vanilla is so challenging is another significant factor driving up pricing. “A plant called an orchid produces vanilla. Only one orchid species, the vanilla planifolia, bears vanilla beans despite the fact that there are more than 100 variants.
Orchids are difficult to maintain and are very picky plants. In the brief time that they are in bloom, orchid blossoms are manually pollinated. Hence, this can be a potential reason for vanilla being expensive.
The method of hand-pollination is challenging and needs to be done by someone with experience. Farmers who have been cultivating vanilla for generations usually handle it. Even after the beans are picked, the process continues. The crop needs to be dried and cured from start to end.
“Vanilla Queen” is the reason why vanilla is only second in price to saffron; it is the most labor-intensive crop in the world. The hand pollination needs to happen on the one day the orchids flower, which happens only once a year.
Ironically, due to the poor price of the labor-intensive vanilla crop, many farmers had already shifted away from farming. The supply issue was made worse at the same time that consumer demand for “real vanilla” began to rise.
Is Genuine Vanilla Expensive?
Vanilla has additional uses in baking than merely imparting a vanilla flavor. Nutritionist Lisa Richards notes that vanilla extract complements other flavors in recipes, much like salt does.
However, it can be tempting to substitute the much less expensive counterfeit vanilla extract, which is chemically produced from materials as diverse as coal tar, wood pulp, and guaiacol (a petrochemical), for the genuine but more expensive variety when a recipe asks for it.
But everyone we spoke with for this piece advised us to purchase the genuine stuff. “The finest ingredients yield the best results, as everyone who takes their excellent recipe-making seriously understands. Therefore, the answer is definitely yes.
Conclusion:
A well-known illustration of supply and demand in economics is the rising cost of vanilla beans. As everyone knows, prices rise when supply declines. However, because consumers want natural goods free of artificial chemicals, the demand for real vanilla beans has been rising steadily as the supply decreases.
Nowadays, consumers prefer real vanilla to fake flavoring. In addition to being used in products with a vanilla flavor, vanilla is also added to baked goods and other products, such as chocolate, to lessen the bitterness of real cocoa. The natural ice cream market is experiencing a sharp increase in demand for Madagascar vanilla beans.
Vanilla is the second most expensive spice after saffron since it requires a lot of work to develop. This might be due to weather, the growing process, and several other factors that we might ignore while assuming, “why is vanilla so expensive?”
In order to purchase bulk vanilla, Wholesale Madagascar Vanilla Beans Supplier is always available. We offer wholesale vanilla of the best quality at Madagascar Vanilla Beans for an affordable price.
