[HN Gopher] Why the world's best vanilla is so easy to steal
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Why the world's best vanilla is so easy to steal
Author : rmason
Score : 28 points
Date : 2023-08-13 20:29 UTC (2 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (thehustle.co)
(TXT) w3m dump (thehustle.co)
| tmnvix wrote:
| Last year I came across a stall at my local fruit and vegetable
| market in NZ. It was selling only vanilla pods - which seemed odd
| to me as there couldn't be that much demand for vanilla in such a
| small market.
|
| After talking with the stallholder, he told me that he had come
| from the Cook Islands on behalf of a government trade delegation
| hoping to promote their vanilla. Interestingly, nobody there
| farms it but they have an abundance growing wild - enough that
| they were hoping to establish an industry.
| mqus wrote:
| The biggest surprise to me is the graphic in the article showing
| the top vanilla exporters.
|
| How are countries like germany, france or canada up there? I
| thought vanilla was more of a tropical plant? Or does this
| include artificial vanilla as well?
| lm28469 wrote:
| Their source seems a bit sketchy:
| https://oec.world/en/profile/hs/vanilla
|
| It looks more like a simple data processing, like grabbing any
| "vanilla beans" trades, adding the "outs" and subtracting the
| "ins"
|
| If you look at other sources you'll find stuff like:
|
| > In 2021, Germany imported 695 tonnes of vanilla, worth EUR83
| million, and exported 245 tonnes, resulting in a net
| consumption of 450 tonnes.
|
| https://www.cbi.eu/market-information/spices-herbs/vanilla/m...
| seszett wrote:
| France is actually one of the main producers (in Reunion -
| where the hand pollination process was discovered - and French
| Polynesia) but I guess the others are just doing some
| import/export.
| mianos wrote:
| Most vanilla flavour, 99%, is produced by creating synthetic
| vanillin. I guess this is included.
| crazygringo wrote:
| That 99% (or 1%) value keeps getting repeated in countless
| blog posts and articles, but I've never seen an actual
| source.
|
| And I find it hard to believe, given that Coca-Cola uses real
| vanilla and is so widely consumed.
|
| Surely more than 1% of people's overall vanilla consumption
| is in Coca-Cola?
|
| Or I wonder if the ratio is vastly different worldwide vs. in
| the US?
| mercutio2 wrote:
| What gave you the impression Coca Cola uses vanilla beans
| OR vanillin?
|
| Different regions use different ingredients for Coke, so I
| guess it's possible this is true in your region, but my
| coke can in California doesn't appear to list Vanilla in
| its ingredients.
|
| Additionally, there was this lawsuit about Vanilla Orange
| Coke containining vanillin, which leads me to think it's
| unlikely there's much Vanilla Bean involved in non-Vanilla
| Coke, at least:
|
| https://www.classaction.org/news/fake-vanilla-coca-cola-
| comp...
|
| With that said, numbers like 99% of vanilla being from
| vanillin does sound like a made up statistic.
| mianos wrote:
| While I agree that 99% seems made up. I am a bit of a
| chemistry hobbyist and produce a wide range of
| flavourings. I have also been to vanilla farms and bought
| lots of vanilla pods. The yield from vanilla pods, not
| matter what process I tried, such as, a very long soak on
| ethanol, hot ethanol or Soxhlet extraction, yield so
| little I find it hard to believe any of those bulk
| consumer products container real vanilla from pods.
|
| Just anecdotal or course, a sample of one and all that.
| :)
| moritzwarhier wrote:
| I also see no rational reason that the average Coca Cola
| serving contain any amount of real vanilla pods, given
| how expensive it is and that vanillin is chemically
| identical with one main flavoring compund contained in
| real vanilla.
|
| If Coke (or Coke Vanilla even) would cobtain real
| vanilla, they'd advertise it for sure. I don't remember
| anything like that
| wlesieutre wrote:
| Call me cynical, but does anything stop companies from
| using one drop of real vanilla extract, a couple of
| gallons of artificial vanilla flavor, and then stick it
| in the ingredients as "natural and artificial flavors"
| and put a big "MADE WITH REAL VANILLA" badge on the
| front?
| hinkley wrote:
| I bet you'd be surprised how much synthetic vanilla someone
| like Nabisco could go through without making something
| 'vanilla flavored'. Vanilla in chocolate flavored items
| punches up the flavor.
| iszomer wrote:
| Maybe they'll go back to using castoreum..
| hinkley wrote:
| Not enough beavers. But we make red food coloring out of
| ground up bugs so maybe.
| londons_explore wrote:
| The pods are harvested by hand right?
|
| It has to be quite an undertaking to harvest 15 acres of tiny
| pods by hand in the middle of the night without the landowner
| noticing...
|
| Besides, if theft really was a huge problem and the goods really
| that valuable, you'd just leave someone to sleep in a tent in the
| middle of the fields during the critical harvest time.
|
| Something smells fishy about this story...
| ciabattabread wrote:
| The paranoid arrogance of HN commenters! Now go buy some
| bitcoin.
| phyzome wrote:
| The pods aren't tiny, and it wouldn't take long to steal quite
| a sack full of them.
|
| << you'd just leave someone to sleep in a tent in the middle of
| the fields during the critical harvest time. >>
|
| The word "just" is doing a lot of work here.
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(page generated 2023-08-13 23:00 UTC)