Madagascar supplies more than 80% of the world’s vanilla, followed by Indonesia and Mexico.

If Chambers and his team succeed, they would help boost Florida’s economy and give local growers more hope for a viable vanilla product.Īs a spice, vanilla is the second most expensive and is one of the world’s most popular flavors. He and his team have been identifying, collecting, breeding and testing more than 300 vanilla cultivars - all to find the one cultivar with the traits that will sustain a viable Florida-grown vanilla industry. This is exactly the field research Chambers and his lab team at UF/IFAS TREC were looking for as a next step.Ĭhambers has been studying the viability of growing vanilla in South Florida as part of the UF/IFAS breeding program since 2015. We simply craft the chocolate and make the product, honoring the farmer and land where the bean was sourced.” We bring the cacao beans from each farm and never blend them. We are committed to the sustainability of chocolate, and we view it as a winemaker would. “We take the cacao beans we roast, then grind them using only sugar before we turn it into a product. “We make our own chocolate here in little Havana we don’t buy any chocolate,” she said. The batch sold out before the holiday arrived. The collection explained how the chocolate featured a locally-grown vanilla bean as its foundation. The chocolates were created into four bite-sized products and packaged as part of the Mother’s Day collection. In his search, he came across a Miami chocolatier who founded the city’s first chocolate factory.įor the experience, Chambers supplied Florida-grown vanilla extract and vanilla beans, and the chocolatier went to work and crafted a variety of bon bons with successful results. He test-marketed a choice vanilla bean grown in a shade house at the Homestead UF/IFAS Tropical Research and Education Center (TREC). To do so, Chambers sought to work with a local business. For the Sunshine State, it’s one step closer to opening the doors for a viable industry.Īlan Chambers, a tropical plant geneticist at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences (UF/IFAS), wanted to mix chocolate and vanilla as he works on the next steps in his vanilla research.

That’s great news for bakers, chefs and home growers who wish to work with a Florida-grown vanilla.

Chocolatier 3 vanilla