I cook at home and, for comparison, I usually buy vanilla at Penzey's. A large bottle of vanilla cost $28, maybe less, and it lasts me a year or so. A month ago, I went for a new bottle and it was listed at $50.
Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
41–50 of 72 posts
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#42To me this means vanilla prices are being manipulated. If the farmers themself are not demanding so much money, then who is? Someone is artificially restricting supply, or inflating prices. Wonder how long it will go on before it crashes....
If you want to manipulate a market that big you’d better have very deep pockets or be willing to take a very large loss. It’s easy to drive up the price of something, buy lots of it. It’s easy to drop the price of something, sell down your stockpile. The only way to make money by buying lots of something and then selling loads of it later is by successfully predicting that future demand will be higher than current de…
Or buy most of crop that is the right size for market demand. Will people pay 5p more for a chocolate bar instead of going without, for sure. So, buy all the chocolate. If there's no one else to buy from and you have no morals then you've won.
I think someone did this with a large portion (several tenths) of the [European?] cocoa bean supply.
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
It doubt that imitation vanilla copies all the chemicals that are present in natural vanilla, as there must be hundreds. With artificial flavorings they usually only copy the most dominant component.
You're right, but vanillin (C8H8O3) is very dominant (even in natural vanilla) and, as natural vanilla is cooked, a lot of the other compounds tend to be destroyed.
Destroyed? Broken down to other chemicals, surely. Or are we cooking at 10000K.
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#44Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's my understanding that modern "imitation" vanilla is chemically identical to the natural stuff. Even so, I buy the regular...
I read in an article that real vanilla only matters for applications that don't involve high heat, as the other flavors in a real vanilla bean get cooked out. Imitation is just as good for most purposes. Just remembered, it was a food lab article: https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/taste-test-is-better-... Food lab is my go to for food related articles interesting details behind the science and process of cooking…
Reading the article, they talk a lot about the alcohol cooking away leaving you tasting less alcohol in the product. Now my question is, where do I buy vanilla that comes in 35% alcohol solution? I can only ever remember seeing dry vanilla.
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#45Earlier quoted context omitted.
>The vanilla trade often takes advantage of the people living in vulnerable communities and doesn't pay a living wage. If we all want ethical access to quality vanilla, we need to start asking buyers to start sourcing certified fair trade (or better) vanilla, and to work to improve the fair trade system. How will that help if the problem is gangs?
If it pays better to work in the legal vanilla trade than the dangerous work of being in a gang, people will typically not choose to be in a gang.
I'd argue that it is just like drugs; you can make a lot more working the street than in a cubical. That's why some do it in the first place, the risk of prison time doesn't matter, because when you get out, you'd still have more money than if you worked in a cubical.
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#46Seems to me like the farmers need to form a futures market to even out the boom and bust cycles.
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#47This is a pretty fascinating article even though it is frustratingly superficial. It seems like there are a bunch of different threads here that would benefit from exploration; the behavioral economics thread; the anthropology thread, the climate change thread ( notice how weather has changed the price repeatedly in the article ), and the producer/consumer disjunction thread. Maybe the author should do some more fiel…
For a somewhat deeper anthropological dive into this, although in a very accessible way, you might check out the book "cows, pigs, Wars, and witches". One of the case studies is a culture with a boom-bust cycle much like this.
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#48I cook at home and, for comparison, I usually buy vanilla at Penzey's. A large bottle of vanilla cost $28, maybe less, and it lasts me a year or so. A month ago, I went for a new bottle and it was listed at $50.
I'm getting near the end of the half-pound of Mexican vanilla I bought just before prices went totally nuts (that packet of beans cost me $55). Not sure what I'm going to do when I run out.
One factor not mentioned in the article is the increased demand from industrial users. Food processors having been trying to replace artificial flavors with natural, and there isn't enough vanilla to go around. Global production is actually quite small, compared to say coffee or chocolate. And it seems unnecessary. Synthetic vanillin is identical to real vanillin. Admittedly, it lacks the additional secondary flavor chemicals that make real vanilla tastier, but does that really matter to Jell-O pudding?
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
I read in an article that real vanilla only matters for applications that don't involve high heat, as the other flavors in a real vanilla bean get cooked out. Imitation is just as good for most purposes. Just remembered, it was a food lab article: https://sweets.seriouseats.com/2013/12/taste-test-is-better-... Food lab is my go to for food related articles interesting details behind the science and process of cooking…
Reading the article, they talk a lot about the alcohol cooking away leaving you tasting less alcohol in the product. Now my question is, where do I buy vanilla that comes in 35% alcohol solution? I can only ever remember seeing dry vanilla.
Amazon or many supermarkets?
https://www.amazon.com/McCormick-Natural-Vanilla-Extract-Glu...
Re: Bracing for the Vanilla Boom
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
If it pays better to work in the legal vanilla trade than the dangerous work of being in a gang, people will typically not choose to be in a gang.
I'd argue that it is just like drugs; you can make a lot more working the street than in a cubical. That's why some do it in the first place, the risk of prison time doesn't matter, because when you get out, you'd still have more money than if you worked in a cubical.
Most people selling drugs make around minimum wage in the US. What makes it attractive is you don't pay taxes, a small percentage get rich, and most people have few options.
I would assume the most gang members in Madagascar are making even less.