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Vanilla bean opportunities
- Food For Sale
Vanilla bean opportunities
Vanilla is a popular flavour and fragrance ingredient. It is in high demand in the food and beverage market as well as to manufacture, perfumes, cosmetics and other products. Vanilla, with its exotic flavour continues as the forefront of consumer food choices. The demand continues to grow in the global market for the unique flavour profiles of different range of vanilla. Due to unstable supply and growing demands, vanilla beans has been characterised with high prices. This has been due to a combination of several reasons. In recent years, there has been poor weather conditions in key growing regions, diseases and pest outbreaks. In addition, there is a huge demand from the food and beverage manufacturers. Despite these challenges, vanilla continues to be a popular flavouring and fragrance food. Therefore, the demand for vanilla beans continues to be strong in future years.
Opportunities and challenges
There are many opportunities for vanilla beans in the global market. It offers good prospects for growers, exporters, and buyers. Premium quality vanilla beans will continue to fetch high-end prices. There is an increase in the demand for new and unique varieties of vanilla. Furthermore, the growing popularity of natural and organic vanilla beans is driving the prices for vanilla beans grown using sustainable methods. Thus far, the market experiences competition from artificial vanilla and vanillin amongst other challenges. Therefore growers are focussing on navigating through the challenges such as diseases, pest issues, poor weather conditions and climate change. So, whether you are a grower, exporter or a buyer, it is important to recognise these opportunities and challenges. Therefore to navigate around the dynamic and exciting market will present profitable business. With consumers in search of clean labels, traceability and sustainability certifications demands are exceeding the current supply.
Growing zone
Vanilla has been grown in tropical areas such as Madagascar, Mexico, Indonesia and Tahiti since the 19th century. Nowadays, most of natural vanilla comes from smallholder farms in Madagascar. However, Indonesia has become a substantial producer too. Thus far, over the centuries, it’s uses continue to escalate; not decline. Availability of natural vanilla has long been a challenge from farms. Therefore, resulting in chemists manufacturing synthetic options as early as the 1900s. In recent years, consumer demand for all-natural foods and drinks is boosting the requirements for traditional vanilla beans. With time production cost have been increasing too. As such, farmgate price is dependent on availability, quality and varieties. Currently, less than 1 percent of vanillin is produced from the actual vanilla beans. Therefore, simply put, the demand for natural vanilla far exceeds the small amount of cultivation globally.
Organic farming
Consumers are turning to organically grown vanilla beans. Organic farming is getting in trend in many countries. It is typically, because of the increasing awareness about the effects caused by chemical fertilisers and pesticides. So, consumers are realising chemicals in fertilisers and pesticides enter the food and water chain. Thus far, it leads to long-term health issues to human body. A lower level of side effects in animals can be seen through food chain too. In addition to health challenges, chemicals affects the soil quality too. However, presently organic farming is low. The expectation is that it will increase in the near future. Ironically, low income countries are major producers of vanilla beans. They are all small-scale farmers. These farmers lack proper facilities and finances to support commercial farming. Therefore, most vanilla is grown organically, however lack proper certifications from authorities. It is simply because of the costs.
