The short answer: vanilla is one of the most labour-intensive crops in the world. Every flower is pollinated by hand, the pods take around nine months to ripen, and curing takes several months more. Supply also depends on weather in a small number of growing regions, so prices can swing sharply from year to year.
1. Every flower is pollinated by hand
Vanilla is an orchid. Each flower opens for just one day. Outside Mexico, where the plant is native, there's almost nothing to pollinate it naturally, so growers pollinate every flower by hand, one at a time, on the morning it opens. Miss that day, and there's no bean.
2. The pods take months to ripen
After pollination, the green pods need around nine months on the vine. Harvest too early and the bean never develops its full flavour. Vines also take a few years to start producing at all.
3. Curing takes months more
Fresh green pods have almost no vanilla smell. The flavour develops during curing, when the beans are blanched, sweated, slowly dried and rested over several months. It's skilled work, and most of it is done by hand.
4. A lot of weight is lost
Curing removes much of the water in a green pod, so it takes several kilos of fresh pods to make one kilo of cured beans.
5. Supply is concentrated and unpredictable
Most of the world's vanilla comes from a few countries. A cyclone, drought or poor harvest in one major region can shrink global supply and push prices up, sometimes dramatically.
Why does artificial vanilla cost so little?
Most cheap vanilla flavouring uses vanillin made in a factory, rather than extracted from beans. It copies vanilla's main flavour compound, but real vanilla contains hundreds of other compounds that give it depth. That's the difference you taste.
Getting the most from real vanilla
- Choose the right grade for the job. Grade B beans cost less and are ideal for extract.
- Reuse your pods. See how to use a vanilla bean.
- Store beans properly so none go to waste. See how to store vanilla beans.