Owning a ten hectares plantation in the SAVA, we work with the agricultural cooperative TGMB, a shareholder of Sullivan's Industry, our malagasy subsidiary. 

We use two species of trees: gliricidia and jatropha which are used as support for the pods and as a shade producer. The trimming of this supports provide a vegetal mulch similar to the original forest environment, lightening the soil and producing a natural fertilizer.

In Mexico, origin country of the orchid, flowers were naturally  fertilized by a little bee: Melipona, which could not be acclimated in indian ocean, obliging a manual fertilization.

Our teams of "Matchmakers" are in charge of this manual fertilization during the flowering period. This process need to put in touch male and female elements separating the sepal.

A precise and delicate ancestral gesture transmitted from generation to generation. We are proud to keep this process and Akhayayha is presently our champion in this discipline with more than 2 400 flowers a day.

 Over the years, we have created a network of  975 planters , amoung whom 25% are  organic   certified 

The harvest at maturity

Scalding

After the crop of green beans, our teams immediately mortify vanillas

Crucial step in the preparation of vanillas, scalding involve immersing the green beans in hot water for a few minutes to trigger the enzymatic process and create the typical vanilla flavours. Based on our experience, we have developed special plunging baskets to guarantee homogeneous scalding for all beans.

Steaming

Once scalded, the beans are wrapped in woolen blankets and placed in large wooden boxes. We take care that humidity and heat remain at a level keeping the enzymatic reaction. At the end of this process, beans reach a beautiful brown color and start to develop the characteristic flavours.

Drying

Drying vanilla is a long and tedious process requiring a long handwork time.

This drying period is parted in two:

• The sun-drying is processed taking out the beans when sun is shinning for a few hours and stored in wooden boxes covered with blankets to keep the heat.
• The shade-drying is processed on racks. This operation lasts several months and requires a lot of handling in order to control the beans.

Refining

Maturation of the vanilla is the last step in the process of the beans.
The beans are stored so that they can breathe in boxes lined with parchment paper. The characteristic fragrance of Bourbon vanilla will use this time to improve and reach all his  complexity.

This new curring process allow to reach noteworthly i ncrease of the vanillin content and is specialy dedicated for extraction beans. Beans are scalded cutted and then put in stove.

After years of various trials we obtained the best control of the different parameters and vanillin increases reaching around 50% .

Laboratoire

Expédition