Michelle Chow’s baking supply store Vanilla Food Company is out of Madagascar Bourbon vanilla beans and she doesn’t know when she’ll get new stock.
The world’s supplier of what Chow calls the “Mercedes of all beans” is suffering a shortage.
High demand combined with natural disaster created shortages devastating the production process. Growers and pickers of vanilla beans in the east African island country were left scrambling to get crops back on track. The shortages in Madagascar have far reaching consequences for buyers and consumers, including those here in Toronto whose businesses rely on the popular flavour.
“There are other wonderful types — Tahitian, Mexican, Indian — but Madagascar is the most widely used and sold,” says Chow, whose Markham-based company has been out of Madagascar vanilla bean stock for six months. Chocolate instead keeps the business afloat during the vanilla crisis.
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