2024-03-24 11:54:40
Bakers stir it into the Easter plait, food companies into their yoghurts, puddings and into Germany’s most popular ice cream flavor. It is contained in chocolate, as well as in whiskey from oak barrels and in Chanel No. 5: Vanillin or vanilla flavors, of which it is the main ingredient. Worldwide, 20,000 tons of vanillin are added to foods, cosmetics and medicines, and the number is rising.
However, vanillin is not vanilla. This is a genus of orchids that is now grown primarily in Madagascar and the surrounding islands, in Indonesia, Mexico and parts of East Africa as well as on some Pacific islands. After harvesting, the still green pods are dried and fermented. They take on a brown color and develop the typical vanilla aroma, to which it is estimated that more than 400 chemical compounds contribute – vanillin is just one of them, but the most dominant in terms of taste and the most important in terms of quantity. It makes up around two percent of the pod weight.
Green pods of the vanilla plant in Madagascar. : Image: dpa
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), almost 8,000 tons of vanilla beans are harvested every year. This corresponds to around 160 tons of vanillin. This makes it clear: the global vanilla harvest only serves a fraction of demand. In addition, growing vanilla is labor-intensive and therefore expensive. The vast majority of demand is therefore covered with synthetic vanillin.
Tinker for a few years
The first people to succeed in obtaining vanillin chemically were Wilhelm Haarmann and Ferdinand Tiemann. While studying chemistry in Berlin, they worked on the synthesis in the early 1870s. Vanillin itself was already known at that time. This was the name given to the white crystals that form on vanilla beans over time. Chemists even knew the composition of the molecule: eight atoms each of carbon and hydrogen and three atoms of oxygen. However, the exact structure of the molecule, which might have given ideas for a synthetic route, was unclear.
Haarmann and Tiemann still found a starting point. Previously, another student, Wilhelm Kubel, had reported a “very pleasant vanilla smell” while experimenting with coniferin, a substance in the sap of coniferous trees. Kubel’s report had aroused the curiosity of Haarmann and Tiemann, and when Kubel did not pursue the topic further, the duo took over further research on Coniferin.
After a few years of tinkering, they actually managed to specifically extract vanillin from coniferin. They were also able to clarify the molecular structure. In 1874 they published their findings. Haarmann saw commercial potential for the discovery and patented the process in the spring of the same year, 150 years ago. While Tiemann was interested in an academic career, Haarmann wanted to try his hand at being an entrepreneur and founded the Dr. vanillin factory in his hometown of Holzminden an der Weser in August 1874. Wilhelm Haarmann. Later we will talk about the world’s first manufacturer of fragrances and flavorings, and so what began in a shed on a former mill property was the nucleus of what is now an important industry.
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