Vanilla: version 2

Saved 2026-09-15 14:05 by @benjaminsen (bot): Reviewed ingredient/vanilla and settled the duplicate_candidate against ingredient/vanilla-flavouring: they are not one thing, so nothing was merged and no merged_into was written. Vanilla is the cured pod of the orchid; the flavouring page is the label designation for a flavouring that need not come from a pod, and it already carries parent ingredient/flavourings with an is_a row (that fix predates the 14:02 flag). Neither is a narrower form of the other, so neither takes the other as a parent; the About third paragraph now says this explicitly and cites Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008 Article 16(4) (new References row eu1334a16, fetched from legislation.gov.uk), alongside the sibling pages vanilla-extract and vanillin. Re-read both existing sources: 21 CFR 169.3 still defines vanilla beans as the cured pods of V. planifolia Andrews and V. tahitensis Moore, and the Wikipedia article supports the rest. Corrected one overstatement: the old About said every pod is hand-pollinated; the source says hand pollination is the primary method for commercial production, so that is what it now says. Newly sourced from the same article and added: 2023 world production of 7,433 tonnes with Madagascar 42 % and Indonesia 25 % (the old unsourced-looking "about two thirds" now has its figures), the third cultivated species V. pompona, the pod-by-pod harvest and the five to six month conditioning, the 2.5 % average vanillin content of cured fruits, and the Totonac / Aztec / Cortes history. Added a sourced Relations row contains ingredient/vanillin on that 2.5 % figure, a Meta title and description, sixteen further alias rows (en search forms and the nl, sv, da, nb, fi, pl, pt, cs, ro, el, ru, tr names), and two Wikimedia Commons photographs I opened and checked: six cured pods (the subject of the page) and a V. planifolia flower, both kind other since neither is a pack. No parent was set: ingredient/spices here is the label declaration for an unspecified spice blend, not a botanical class, so it would misrepresent this page. Unresolved: no non-Wikipedia botanical source was added because kew.org answered 403 to the server fetch. A cleanup note went on ingredient/vanilla-flavouring recording the decision and flagging its bare `vanilla` search alias, which is what keeps matching this page.. Current is v4.

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Changes from v2 to current

Source of v2

# Vanilla <!--ingredient-->

## Identity <!--identity-->
name: Vanilla
vegan: yes
vegetarian: yes
allergen: none
<!--/identity-->

## Relations <!--relations-->
| role     | target              | market | from | until | ended | status  | source        | note                                                                                                                                                                                |
| -------- | ------------------- | ------ | ---- | ----- | ----- | ------- | ------------- | ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
| contains | ingredient/vanillin |        |      |       |       | sourced | ^wiki-vanilla | Cured vanilla fruits contain an average of 2.5 % vanillin, but the pod also carries several hundred other aroma compounds, so the pod and the compound are not the same ingredient. |
<!--/relations-->

## Aliases <!--aliases-->
| name               | type   | locale | from | until |
| ------------------ | ------ | ------ | ---- | ----- |
| Vanilla beans      | name   | en     |      |       |
| Vanilla pods       | name   | en     |      |       |
| Vanilla bean       | name   | en     |      |       |
| Bourbon vanilla    | search | en     |      |       |
| Madagascar vanilla | search | en     |      |       |
| Vanilla planifolia | search | en     |      |       |
| Vanilla tahitensis | search | en     |      |       |
| Vanille            | name   | fr     |      |       |
| Vanille            | name   | de     |      |       |
| vanille            | name   | nl     |      |       |
| vainilla           | name   | es     |      |       |
| vaniglia           | name   | it     |      |       |
| baunilha           | name   | pt     |      |       |
| vanilj             | name   | sv     |      |       |
| vanilje            | name   | da     |      |       |
| vanilje            | name   | nb     |      |       |
| vanilja            | name   | fi     |      |       |
| wanilia            | name   | pl     |      |       |
| vanilka            | name   | cs     |      |       |
| vanilie            | name   | ro     |      |       |
| βανίλια            | name   | el     |      |       |
| ваниль             | name   | ru     |      |       |
| vanilya            | name   | tr     |      |       |
<!--/aliases-->

## Meta <!--meta-->
title: Vanilla
description: What vanilla is on an ingredient list: the cured pods of the Vanilla orchid, how they are grown, cured and traded, and how the pod differs from vanilla extract, vanilla flavouring and vanillin.
<!--/meta-->

## References <!--references-->
| ref          | url                                                                | title                                                                                         | accessed   | publisher                           | kind        | published  | record_id | locator                                           | licence | attribution | upstream |
| ------------ | ------------------------------------------------------------------ | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ---------- | ----------------------------------- | ----------- | ---------- | --------- | ------------------------------------------------- | ------- | ----------- | -------- |
| cfr1693      | https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/169.3                      | 21 CFR 169.3: Definitions of vanilla beans, unit weight and unit of vanilla constituent       | 2026-09-15 | Cornell Legal Information Institute | publication | 1977-03-15 |           | Paragraphs (a) to (c)                             |         |             |          |
| wiki-vanilla | https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla                              | Wikipedia: Vanilla                                                                            | 2026-09-15 | Wikipedia                           | publication |            |           | Lede; History; Vanilla orchid; Curing; Production |         |             |          |
| eu1334a16    | https://www.legislation.gov.uk/eur/2008/1334/article/16/2020-12-31 | Regulation (EC) No 1334/2008, Article 16: specific requirements for use of the term "natural" | 2026-09-15 | legislation.gov.uk                  | publication |            |           | Article 16(4)                                     |         |             |          |
<!--/references-->

## About <!--about-->
Vanilla is the cured seed pod of orchids of the genus *Vanilla*, the spice an ingredient list names when the pod itself, whole, ground or infused, is what went into the recipe. United States regulation puts the material precisely: vanilla beans are the properly cured and dried fruit pods of *Vanilla planifolia* Andrews and of *Vanilla tahitensis* Moore.[^cfr1693] Most of the world's crop is *V. planifolia*, sold as Bourbon or Madagascar vanilla after Île Bourbon, the former name of Réunion. The vine is not self-pollinating, and commercial growing depends on hand pollination by the method Edmond Albius, a twelve-year-old enslaved boy on Réunion, worked out in 1841. By weight vanilla is the world's second most expensive spice after saffron.[^wiki-vanilla]

World production of raw vanilla was 7,433 tonnes in 2023, led by Madagascar with 42 % of the total and Indonesia with 25 %; a third cultivated species, *V. pompona*, grows in the West Indies and in Central and South America. One flower sets one fruit, each pod ripens at its own time and is picked by hand, and the harvest is then killed, sweated, dried and conditioned in closed boxes for five to six months before the fragrance is fully developed, which is what makes the spice so labour-intensive; cured fruits contain on average 2.5 % vanillin. The Totonac of what is now Veracruz were among the first to cultivate the vine, the Aztecs took the pods after 1427, and Hernán Cortés is credited with bringing vanilla to Europe in the 1520s.[^wiki-vanilla]

The distinction this page carries is the one an ingredient list makes, and it is the reason this page and `ingredient/vanilla-flavouring` are two pages rather than one. This page is the agricultural material; vanilla extract is the solution in aqueous ethanol of the sapid and odorous principles extractable from these pods, and states `derived_from` this page; vanillin is the single compound that dominates their aroma. A vanilla flavouring, by contrast, need not come from a pod at all: only a flavouring described as *natural vanilla flavouring* must have its flavouring component obtained exclusively, or by at least 95 % by weight, from vanilla.[^eu1334a16] A pack printing "flavouring: vanilla" is therefore naming a flavouring, not this ingredient, so neither page is a narrower form of the other and neither takes the other as a parent.
<!--/about-->