Responsibly-sourced vanilla
High quality vanilla beans produce premium vanilla extracts and flavours. Because Madagascar vanilla beans are often considered the world’s best, we work directly with indigenous farmers to implement best practice farming methods and produce a variety of vanilla tastes.
Nourishing a sustainable vanilla partnership
Vanilla cultivation and harvest require extra care, patience and training. In 2014, we co-founded the Tsara Kalitao programme, which means “good quality” in the Malagasy language. In collaboration with Authentic Products, a local supplier that supports Madagascar’s vanilla farmers, we partner to develop better methods for farming, harvesting, curing and grading vanilla beans.
Across 11 villages and 654 members, the Tsara Kalitao programme promotes:
Enhancing small-holder livelihoods
Participating farmers receive agricultural training from 7 dedicated staff, including 3 agronomists, and receive government certification. Because vanilla theft is a problem, we help farmers better protect their crops; in 2019, theft levels were lower than 3%, one of the best in the country. Our farmers are rewarded with a premium price for their top quality vanilla.
Enabling women
Women living in the Tsara Kalitao villages receive financial skills training, allowing them to better manage family income and rice stock which helps prevent the selling of vanilla beans before they are mature, enabling a more balanced and sustained income throughout the year.
Improving children’s education
We work with farmers, local agencies and teachers to ensure children in Tsara Kalitao villages are able to stay in school until at least age 15. Our financial and implementation support goes toward teaching, school fees, supplies and books to benefit over 4,500 children. Exam pass rates have more than doubled since launch in 2017, elevating the 19 participating schools to the top 5% of best performing schools in the country.
100% organic vanilla
Our sustainably produced vanilla extracts and flavours are organic certified by Ecocert and the National Organic Program under Tsara Kalitao. These sustainable vanilla products deliver on consumers taste expectations, regional preferences and regulatory needs. In addition to traditional tastes, our innovative flavourists have developed unique offerings such as vanilla matured in oakwood barrels.
Quality vanilla through nature and nurture
Growing and harvesting vanilla fruits is labour-intensive.
After a vanilla flower blossoms in October, November or December, it must be hand-pollinated within 12 hours of opening; each flower can produce a maximum of one fruit.
The vanilla beans reach maturity at around 9 months, between June and August; once ripe, they are hand-harvested.
From September to November, beans are cured, moving through the process of killing, sweating, slow-drying and conditioning.
In January or February, more than a year after the vanilla bean began to grow, beans are graded according to size, colour, smell and texture.
Beans are exported to Grasse, France, where the taste is extracted and turned into our taste products.
Recent taste insights and innovations
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Building a Sustainable Food Supply Chain
