The hottest days of summer have yet to arrive, but Boston’s ice cream shops are already sweating. The reason? A massive spike in vanilla prices that’s threatening to drive the cost of a cone into the stratosphere.
The source of the problem is the distant island nation of Madagascar, 8,500 miles from Boston, where a cyclone in March devastated the farms that supply more than 80 percent of the world’s vanilla beans. In the wake of the storm, some distributors have resorted to rationing supplies. For local scoop shops, it’s a giant ice-cream headache.
Aaron Cohen, the owner of Gracie’s Ice Cream in Somerville, used to buy vacuum-packed bags of beans for his vanilla ice cream at a rate of $72 a pound. He says that those same packs would now cost him $320, and that’s led him to scramble for alternatives. But even given the price spike, he’s hesitant to charge more for a cup or cone, or to list vanilla as a premium flavor.
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