Roland Hardman, BPharm, BSc (Chem), PhD (London), FR Pharm S Head of Pharmacognosy (Retired), School of Pharmacy & Pharmacology University of Bath, United Kingdom
Preface
Vanilla is a legacy of Mexico, and like chocolate, another major global delicacy, it is the basis of many sweets, ice cream, and cola drinks. Vanilla flavor is appreciated in any concentration by most people all over the world. It represents a large market of almost a half billion Euros per year, with only a few countries producing the pods of this tropical orchid. An orchid with special demands for soil and climate, sensitive to pests and diseases, and because of its vegetative propagation it has little genetic variation in the producing areas. In addition, several of the major growing regions, such as Madagascar, are regularly hit by tropical storms. This makes vanilla a vulnerable crop, resulting in large yearly changes in price. Moreover, the green beans need an elaborate curing procedure, which results in the final product: the dark colored pods which contain a high amount of vanillin. This process is still not well understood, though of crucial importance for the vanilla flavor.
The supply issue obviously resulted in efforts to start production in other regions and even in greenhouses, or to alternatively look for other sources of vanillin. With the food and beverage industry as the major users, the preferred source is a natural one, which means production by other plants or microorganisms, including the microbial bioconversion of vanillin precursors. Vanillin is thus available as a pure chemical entity both of natural and synthetic origin, but the pure compound does not give the same flavor as obtained with vanilla pods, or extracts thereof. Because of the large differences in price between the different commodities, adulteration is not uncommon.
This very brief sketch of vanilla explains the diverse research in this field. This includes biotechnology aimed at finding novel production methods of vanillin, horticultural studies for improving yields and increasing the resistance of the plants, entomology for finding possible pollinators required in areas outside of the original habitat, studies on the chemistry and biochemistry of the curing process, and unfortunately also advanced analytical chemistry to be able to identify adulterations such as vanillin-spiked pods, and synthetic vanillin instead of natural vanillin.
This book gives an excellent overview of this field. All chapters are written by experts, each with many years of experience in their respective fields. This book shows the past, present, and future of vanilla, and with no doubt will serve for many years to come as the major comprehensive source of information on vanilla, the standard reference source for all who have interest in vanilla, such as producers, flavorists, researchers, and consumers.
Rob Verpoorte
Department of Pharmacognosy/Metabolomics Leiden University
Leiden, the Netherlands
Editors
Eric Odoux graduated in biochemistry and has had a career with CIRAD (French Agricultural Research Centre for Inter national Development) since 1988. He successively worked on coffee, cocoa, aromatic plants, and tropical fruits processing in Cameroon (and other countries in West Africa) and in France before he developed a research project on vanilla curing in Reunion Island and Madagascar in 1996. His research has mainly focused on vanilla aroma development related to curing practices. He received his PhD in food sciences from University of Montpellier II (France) in 2004.
His work led to research in partnership with industry, to consultancy reports, and to scientific articles.
Michel Grisoni graduated in agronomy and holds a PhD in plant pathology from Montpellier SupAgro, France. He has pursued a career as agro-virologist for CIRAD since 1984 in Colombia, French Polynesia, and Reunion Island. His research on vanilla has focused primarily on virus diseases and then moved towards the characterization, preservation, and development of genetic resources, particularly to improve the resistance of vanilla plants to diseases.
He is presently in charge of the Vanilla Genetics and Certification Research Program of CIRAD and curator of the vanilla collection at the Center for Biological Resources (Vatel) on Reunion Island. He is the author or coauthor of many scientific articles, consultancy reports, and conference communications related to vanilla.
Contributors
K. Nirmal Babu
Division of Crop Improvement and
Biotechnology Indian Institute of Spices Research
Calicut, Kerala, India
Pascale Besse
Unité Mixte de Recherche—Peuplement Végétaux et Bioagresseurs en Milieu Tropical
Université de la Réunion
Saint Denis, La Réunion, France
Séverine Bory
Unité Mixte de Recherche—Peuplement Végétaux et Bioagresseurs en Milieu Tropical
Université de la Réunion
Saint Pierre, La Réunion, France
Spencer Brown
Institut des Sciences du Végétal
Centre National de la Recherche
Scientifique Gif-sur-Yvette, France
Christel Brunschwig
Département Recherche et Développement
Etablissement Vanille de Tahiti
Uturoa, Raiatea, French Polynesia
and
Laboratoire de Biodiversité Terrestre et Marine
Université de la Polynésie Française
Tahiti, French Polynesia
Kenneth M. Cameron
Department of Botany
University of Wisconsin
Madison, Wisconsin
Dexin Chen
Hainan Bright Fragrance Co. Ltd.
Haikou, China
François-Xavier Collard
Département Recherche et Développement Etablissement Vanille de Tahiti
Uturoa, Raiatea, French Polynesia
Bertrand Côme
Provanille / La Vanilleraie
La Réunion, France
Geneviève Conéjéro
Unité Mixte de Recherche—Biochimie et Physiologie Moléculaire des Plantes
Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique
Montpellier, France
Minoo Divakaran
Department of Botany
Providence Women’s College
Calicut, Kerala, India
Michel Dron
Institut de Biotechnologie des Plantes
Université Paris Sud
Orsay, France
Marie-France Duval
Unité Propre de Recherche—Multiplication Végétative
Centre de Recherche Agronomique Pour le Développement
Montpellier, France
Karin Farreyrol
School of Biological Sciences
The University of Auckland
Auckland, New Zealand
Clemens Fehr
Gourmet Gardens Ltd.
Kampala, Uganda
Michel Grisoni
Unité Mixte de Recherche—Peuplement Végétaux et Bioagresseurs en Milieu Tropical
Centre de Recherche Agronomique Pour le Développement
Saint Pierre, La Réunion, France
Franz-Josef Hammerschmidt
Symrise GmbH & Co
Holzminden, Germany
Juan Hernández Hernández
Instituto Nacional de Investigaciones Forestales
Agrícolas y Pecuarias
Martínez de la Torre, Veracruz, México
Jens-Michael Hilmer