Welcome to the new Vanilla millennium.  Bakto Flavors LLC will host Vanilla 2013, November 5th and 6th  following a series of successful vanilla meetings around the world as well as workshops on Vanilla Science and Technology.  The meeting will be held in the Crowne Plaza Hotel, Monroe, NJ (please see hotel information).  Participants will have the option of choosing the number of days they would like to attend.

 

In this meeting we will address the newest breakthrough discoveries in vanilla science.  The meeting will also address the burning current issues in the vanilla industry and provide an opportunity for discussion.

 

Vanilla production is vulnerable to many threats, such as diseases, low prices to the producers and low demand by buyers.  Vanilla 2013 will focus on what is currently being done and what researchers and the vanilla industry need to initiate now to sustain production of the world's most popular flavor. The price of vanilla has gone up 20-50%, rattling vanilla experts and growers until the November 2013 crop; however, the price has been historically low, and sustainability has been hard to maintain. Farmers, therefore, need to be paid more in order to sustain their farms and maintain their businesses. Vanilla 2013 hopes to keep speculation out, avoiding a repeat of the previous vanilla crisis. 

 

Understanding how the vanilla pod can accumulate such high levels of flavor compounds has so far eluded researchers. Richard Dixon's group (Noble Foundation, and now at the University of North Texas) has recently generated very large gene sequence datasets from developing vanilla pods, and their interrogation throws light on many aspects of vanilla metabolism.  At Rutgers University Faith Belanger's lab is examining the sequences from different developmental stages of the pod for genes involved in vanillin biosynthesis.  Through this process, the "hunt" for the vanillin pathway genes is making huge strides.