Real Vanilla: Nature's Unsung Hero

I've seen the vanilla flower opening before.

It was in 2019, when I went to Tanzania to participate in the Vanilla Symposium at Moshi in the foothills of Kilimanjaro. I had been taken to visit two subsistence farmers' homes several hours' drive from the conference centre.

I had decided to attend the Symposium because I knew the company hosting the event. In 2011 a man had contacted me to ask if we could meet up in London. He was starting a vanilla project in Tanzania and wanted to discuss the possibility of LittlePod, my fledgling company, and Natural Extracts Industries, his start-up company, working together.

When we met it was clear that Juan Guardado was driven to make his project a success. He wanted to be with his wife, a doctor who had set up an Aids clinic in the region. And he wanted to contribute something to the community infrastructure, to improve the lives of the people among whom he was to be living. I was awed by his desire to change his life. He had been working in the world of multinational companies, and this was out of his comfort zone. It was a love story as I saw it. He was clearly devoted to his wife, and she had led him to do something rather brave and entrepreneurial.

It was not possible to offer any assistance at the time when we met because I was still learning about vanilla and my own company was new. It was challenging enough to embark on this unknown journey into the world of vanilla. However, we kept in touch, and eight years later in 2019 when I heard that Juan's company were hosting a special symposium where vanilla farmers, researchers and other vanilla companies were gathering from across the globe, I knew I had to go. I wanted to see Juan and find out how he had got on.

Taken during our time in Tanzania, the vanilla orchid in flower

Some time after the conference, Paul, LittlePod's media manager, was keen to interview Juan to see what he recollected from then and the earlier time. He started by asking him about his involvement with vanilla. Juan told him, 'I started NEI (Natural Extracts Industries) at the end of 2011. The business model from the beginning was set up like a social enterprise, although legally that concept doesn't really exist in Tanzania. The purpose was to bring economic development to rural communities. The way to do that is to create shared values, to add value at the origin, and then share that by paying more, essentially. Vanilla just happened to be a coincidence, shall we say. It was a happy coincidence because vanilla has such a lot of positive environmental factors. It needs canopies, you need to protect the trees. It uses space that is not used by other crops because it's under the canopy and therefore needs other plants around it to thrive. That canopy creates soil moisture and improves soil health. It's naturally organic, you're not using fertilisers or chemicals to grow it. There is a lot of positive reinforcement that comes just from growing vanilla. If you grow it in the right way.'

'Did you grow it the right way?' Paul asked him.

'That has evolved in what we are doing today', Juan continued. 'This is more of an agroforestry practice, regenerating plots. Maybe there are plots of maize and corn that are so depleted that the farmers need to keep feeding them fertilisers, which are expensive. We're generating those plots with forest and putting vanilla under it and things like that. It has evolved like that from there. We started with about 30 farmers and now we are managing around 12,000 in our own network. It has grown laterally, with a huge geographic coverage.

'Unlike LittlePod, we're purely b2b (business-to-business). We work with the flavour houses and the food and beverage manufacturers. We don't work a lot on getting our brand out there. It's all about the product and the quality.'

'What kind of results have you seen?' Paul was eager to know.

'We have seen a lot of farmer transformations. We work directly with the farmers; there are no middlemen involved. It's a tight-knit community, a close relationship. We also work closely with many other stakeholders around here, with the government, the Bureau of Standards, the East African community, because vanilla is grown in multiple countries. We are on the technical committee.'

Paul was keen to know more about the infrastructure, and questioned Juan further. 'How do you define the framework, what standards should be used, what regulations should be in place for growing vanilla in the region?'

'There's a lot that we have done for vanilla in this corner of the world', Juan said. 'We have worked with many NGOs and donor organisations to try new things and benefit farmers. We did a large project on rainwater harvest capture, putting the water that lands on your roof into tanks for later use. We've done work with savings groups, self-help groups, women's empowerment, trying to employ more youth, so many different things. We do a lot and so much of our ethos is shared with LittlePod.'

'Is that why you have an affinity with Janet?' Paul enquired.

'We got to know each other well when Janet came to Kilimanjaro for the vanilla conference we held in 2019. That was special. She got to see a little bit more of what we stood for. I remember Janet so well. We had a one-year-old at that time and she brought him a small gift. It was unexpected. It was a little wooden car carrier. We still have it around. It was sweet, special. It cemented what we stood for.

'That was when Janet met Irine, who is the daughter of one of our farmer champions. Together we decided to help her out. LittlePod financed Irine's studies, and we put the action on the ground to make sure that the money all went where it was supposed to go. Irine thrived. (For the story of Irine and more about the Symposium, see Chapter 5.) It's representative of the broader network and the work that we do. Corporates call it a supply chain. We call it family. Our farmer network, the people we work with. We see and feel their pain every day. We help where we can. We can't help every Irine out there, not with 12,000 farmers and their families, 60,000 people. But it shows what you can do when you really work closely with your stakeholders.'

Paul was struck: 'That was a special collaboration. The success of that project spurred Janet on to find ways in which LittlePod could be a useful voice, especially around education.'

'Yes', said Juan. 'Since that time, we've seen LittlePod do wonderful things. We've seen the awards they have achieved and heard about Made in Indonesia. It's all part of the same ethos - that we all must try to make the world a better place. At NEI we have a slogan. We say, "Developing a better world one flavour at a time."'

'Well, I am sure that Janet would endorse that', Paul concluded.

Inspecting the vanilla vines in Tanzania in 2019

Later, when I read Paul's interview I could remember that visit as if I were still there. Meeting Juan again after almost a decade had been a joy. He now had his wonderful one-year-old son. I remember the gift I brought for Hugo, a set of little wooden cars. From our arrival at Kilimanjaro airport to the final safari this was to be ten unforgettable days.

To me, Juan had grown in stature. Was it because he had now become a father, or could it be because of the circumstances of living alongside people with whom he was sharing his daily life? Or could it be because of the responsibility he felt for having created this hope for a prosperous future? Perhaps all of that and more. I respect his integrity and can see that still glowing.

Working conditions for Juan are not easy. There is a lot to contend with. Permissions to gain from government officials, expectations of the farmers, having to use a generator that packs up regularly. But despite all those difficulties he organised the most brilliant symposium.

I had not attended the conference alone. Olly, LittlePod's CEO, had come with me. He was going to present a poster paper at the conference on the state of vanilla knowledge in the UK. It was an eye opener for both of us to meet vanilla farmers from across the globe, some of whom were planting vanilla for the first time. It was also great serendipity, because I was looking to work with a new vanilla supplier from Madagascar, as my friend Nash - Naushad - had decided to sell his company and retire (please see chapter 10 to find...