Meet the Producer – LittlePod

GR – LittlePod was started to educate consumers and encourage farmers to keep producing real vanilla. What was it specifically about vanilla that ignited the passion for the business?

LittlePod – Our passion for REAL vanilla was first sparked when Janet Sawyer MBE BEM, LittlePod’s founder and Managing Director, hosted a talk at the Village Hall in Farringdon, here in East Devon. The speaker was a close friend who had worked in the vanilla industry for 35 years. He introduced Janet to Patricia Rain – aka the Vanilla Queen – who is a chef, author and sustainability expert, based in the United States. Patricia, who had long done tireless work on behalf of the farming communities in the world’s Equatorial regions, told Janet that vanilla could be lost within a generation if we didn’t act immediately. Janet realised that consumers in the West had lost touch with the story of vanilla, what it is, where it comes from and why it is so important. Determined to make a difference, she launched LittlePod and that is how our Campaign for Real Vanilla first began. Fourteen years later, we’re still supporting the farmers and telling that story.

GR –  When LittlePod was started in 2010, 97% of all the vanilla used in the West was artificial. Has this percentage decreased at all on the back of the work and campaigning that LittlePod has done to support the use of real vanilla.

LittlePod – Unfortunately, artificial vanillin remains prevalent, but that doesn’t tell the full story. Great inroads were being made until a cyclone struck Madagascar in 2017, wiping out the crop and doubling the price of real vanilla overnight. Since then, we have had to negotiate the Covid pandemic, the energy crisis and various other issues that have impacted us all globally. In 2019, because the price of vanilla was so high, a lot of farmers started planting again. With more vanilla on the market, we expected the price to fall dramatically. But then another cyclone hit Madagascar in March, which will again have an impact. What is encouraging is that when we started in 2010, vanilla was on the precipice, but we have managed to halt the decline and have spent 14 years educating people. In 2010 even the best chefs in the business didn’t understand that vanilla was an orchid grown in tropical rainforests, whereas now, there is greater awareness, to the point that it was even a recent question on University Challenge! There is a lot of hard work ahead, but vanilla is safe for the future and people can begin to invest in it once again. If we could make just a 1% incursion into the artificial vanillin market, we would double the demand for real, natural vanilla worldwide. That would make a huge difference.

GR – You formed a fruitful partnership with Made, your vanilla farmer in Indonesia, and in 2022 harvested your first vanilla pods from the LittlePod orchard in Bali. Why did you choose Indonesia over other vanilla-producing countries to establish your orchard?

LittlePod – Most people associate vanilla with Madagascar, but Indonesia was once the world’s number one producer. During the difficult years of a dictatorship in Indonesia, the farmers were ordered to burn their root stocks, but Made never abandoned his long-held dream to resurrect his father’s old vanilla farm and to start growing vanilla in Bali once again, using a pioneering system of polyculture to benefit biodiversity and aid the environment. LittlePod’s collaborative orchard has been so successful that the Indonesian government has realised that the vanilla industry can be reignited, and that the rainforest can be regenerated as a result. The government in Indonesia has given our innovative orchard its backing and has made a commitment to plant 27 million hectares of regenerative rainforest, 1% of which will be vanilla. The monoculture practices that are used elsewhere in the world have been shown to do environmental damage, but we have proved that there is a better method that has great environmental benefits.

GR – The LittlePod orchard was established in 2012, which means it was 10 years before you harvested your first vanilla pods. Why did it take so long?  

LittlePod – Growing vanilla is a long and time-consuming process! People don’t realise that from planting, it takes three-and-a-half years for the orchid to flower. The flowering season is six weeks long, but each flower lasts for just a single day. The vanilla farmers must individually pollinate every flower by hand, after which it takes a further nine months for the bean to mature on the vine. Once the pods have been harvested, you need to allow a further 18 months for curing and conditioning and you can’t rush these things. Once we had committed to setting up our orchid in collaboration with Made, we had to get permission from the Indonesian government and then convince the farmers in Bali that it was a good idea. That wasn’t a straightforward task and there was some scepticism because the farmers had lost a lot of money in the past trying to re-establish vanilla. We did have a small harvest after five years, but since then production has moved to a state-of-the-art conditioning facility, which has helped us to process more and more pods. Now we have a tonne of vanilla and thanks to the hard work of the farmers in Bali, our orchard is thriving.

GR – In 2020, you toasted the launch of LittlePod in Japan. Can you tell us more about this?

LittlePod – We were due to attend Foodex in Tokyo, the largest food trade show in Asia, in 2020. Unfortunately, due to the Covid pandemic, the event couldn’t go ahead. We had invested so much into the trip that Janet decided to go to Japan anyway. It proved to be a good decision. Janet met lots of people, made some great connections and even managed to find a distributor and importer, which is no mean feat in such a short space of time! Our team in Tokyo have worked hard ever since to tell our story and establish LittlePod in Japan and it was a delight to return to Japan this year to support them, give our thanks and to exhibit at Foodex at last. Our first customer in Japan was the renowned Barakura English Garden. We received a fantastic response and look forward to recruiting a new generation of LittlePodders in Japan and beyond.

GR – What other countries sell your products and what plans do you have for the future of the business?

LittlePod – LittlePod products are sold all over the world. Within one week of launching LittlePod in 2010, our products could be bought in Germany and Portugal, and we’ve established ourselves as a truly international business during the subsequent years. LittlePod is in Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Sweden and lots of other countries besides. We have a wonderful distributor in Hong Kong, who is preparing to take our products to China. We’re stocked in Canada, the United States and Australia. The list is endless. We’re also working hard to reach more customers here in the UK and we’re so grateful to GR Fine Foods for helping us to spread the word about REAL vanilla and its importance to the planet and all its people. We value GR’s support so much and are appreciate of all your efforts. Thank-you!