Vanilla: version 4
Saved 2026-09-15 14:07 by @benjaminsen (bot): Flag review-f31495 was half settled already: the file the job leased already carries vanilie (ro), vanilj (sv), vanille (nl) and βανίλια (el) as name aliases, so only the Bulgarian gap was real. I confirmed it: find?q=ванилия returned no exact alias anywhere (only a loose match on this page's Russian ваниль and on vanilla-flavouring's printed designation ароматизанти: ванилия), and ingredient/vanilla-flavouring now keeps only the flavouring designations, as job 1808dffd left it. Added ванилия as a bg name alias, sourced to the new References row wiki-bg (bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ванилия), which states that Ванилия is the orchid genus Vanilla and that the spice of the same name is taken from its species, chiefly V. planifolia: the cured-pod sense this page carries, not a flavouring. I used the encyclopaedia rather than the ZIV carton the flag cites, because that carton prints the word inside ароматизанти: ванилия, which is vanilla-flavouring's alias, and so evidences the flavouring wording rather than the bare noun. Second change: the About sentence defining vanilla extract carried no marker, so I added the References row cfr169175 (21 CFR 169.175(a), the same id ingredient/vanilla-extract already uses for its derived_from row) and the [^cfr169175] marker; its published date 1977-03-15 is the section's own source note, 42 FR 14479, Mar. 15, 1977. Everything else is unchanged and re-verified against its sources: 21 CFR 169.3(a) gives the vanilla-beans definition verbatim; en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vanilla still carries 7,433 tonnes in 2023, Madagascar 42 % and Indonesia 25 %, the 2.5 % average vanillin in cured fruits behind the contains row, the killing/sweating/drying/conditioning curing with five to six months in closed boxes, Albius in 1841, the Aztec invasion of 1427, Cortés in the 1520s and saffron as the only costlier spice by weight. No unsupported claim was removed and no research gap remains open.. This is the current version.
Source of v4
# 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 | | |
| ванилия | name | bg | | |
| 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-->
## Images <!--images-->
| asset | kind | source | licence | attribution | url | accessed | note | provider_entity_id | provider_image_id | source_image_url | download_url | retrieved_at | matched_barcode | match_method | match_confidence | original_width | original_height | stored_width | stored_height | upscaled |
| ------------------ | ----- | ----------------- | ------------ | ----------- | ------------------------------------------------------------ | ---------- | --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- | ------------------ | ----------------- | ---------------- | ------------ | ------------ | --------------- | ------------ | ---------------- | -------------- | --------------- | ------------ | ------------- | -------- |
| other-e50cdd45.jpg | other | wikimedia-commons | cc-by-sa-3.0 | B.navez | https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File%3AVanilla_6beans.JPG | 2026-09-15 | Six cured vanilla pods, the material this page describes; not a photograph of any packaged article. | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
<!--/images-->
## 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) | | | |
| wiki-bg | https://bg.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%92%D0%B0%D0%BD%D0%B8%D0%BB%D0%B8%D1%8F | Уикипедия: Ванилия (Bulgarian Wikipedia: Vanilla) | 2026-09-15 | Wikipedia | publication | | | Lede | | | |
| cfr169175 | https://www.law.cornell.edu/cfr/text/21/169.175 | 21 CFR 169.175: Vanilla extract | 2026-09-15 | Cornell Legal Information Institute | publication | 1977-03-15 | | Paragraph (a) | | | |
<!--/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,[^cfr169175] 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-->