Danisco to receive first batch of sustainable vanilla from India

31/05/05 Jai Chaitanya Dasa, a Hare Krishna monk from a temple in Bangalore, India, has established a non-profit organisation that promotes organic and sustainable growing methods among local farmers and manages the collection, initial processing and sale of vanilla pods.

The local farmers involved in the vanilla project receive 80% of the earnings generated from the sale and the remaining 20% goes to the workers who process, sort and dispatch the vanilla. Initial processing takes place at a small factory in Mysore and most of the work is carried out and supervised by women, who are paid up to three times the pay rates for similar work elsewhere in India, which allows them to send their children to school.

Danisco has audited the vanilla supply chain to ensure that the entire process from the growing of vanilla pods over processing to transportation follows sustainability principles.

1.2 tonnes of vanilla produced on a sustainable basis have just been shipped from India to Danisco's flavour plant in St. Louis, USA.

The Danish market is also familiar with vanilla from Danisco whose food ingredients are found in half of all the ice cream in the world. But vanilla is used in a variety of other foods such as flavoured coffee, so popular in the USA, health drinks, desserts and many other products.