31 flavours minus one
Vanilla is so expensive that some U.K. ice cream parlours have stopped selling it as a flavour, the BBC reports. At the moment, it’s among the world’s priciest spices (second only to saffron), and at nearly $800 per kilogram, it now costs more than silver.
Native to South and Central America and the Caribbean, the vast majority of the world’s vanilla is cultivated in Madagascar. Derived from the vanilla orchid flower, the spice is pricey to begin with due to the fact that it’s so labour-intensive to grow and harvest.
The primary reason for the price surge, however, is due to Cyclone Enawo, which hit the East African island nation in March 2017 decimating many of its plantations, commodities analyst Julian Gale told the BBC.
Artisanal ice cream maker Julie Fisher reportedly said that she has dropped vanilla at her Ruby Violet chain of parlours “‘for the foreseeable future’ because she can’t afford the thousands of pounds it would cost.”
And it’s not just the ice cream industry – France 24 reports that chefs are forgoing vanilla as well: “Famed French chef Gilles Marchal, whose restaurant is in Montmartre, Paris, declared with regret that he now works much less with the black and bean-shaped pod.”
“Vanilla has hit these cycles every 10-15 years for the past 100 years. Currently, we estimate that we’re past the peak as prices and supplies ‘seem’ to be stabilizing,” Ethné and Philippe de Vienne of Montreal-based Épices de Cru said by email.
“If this cycle holds true, we should start seeing prices declining within a year or two, followed by a quick collapse as stocks pile up and speculators take their profit and farmers are literally left holding the bag.”
Today, more than 95 per cent of vanilla-flavoured foods don’t contain vanilla at all, but a synthetic flavouring called vanillin (commonly extracted from wood and sometimes petroleum), Business Insider reports. The use of vanillin is expected to become even more prevalent, the BBC writes, as industries attempt to dodge increased costs.