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Bye bye ice cream: Sask. business owners bitter over vanilla prices

It may seem like a pretty basic flavour, but vanilla beans are now worth more than silver.

As prices skyrocket, many business owners are re-evaluating whether they can afford it.

Jordan Ethridge, owner of Saskatoon's Fable Ice Cream, said they used to make vanilla bean ice cream, but don't anymore.

About a year ago, their supplier ran out. Ethridge said he found another supplier with vanilla bean in stock, but to get their hands on it customers have to buy three kilograms at a time. At $700/kg, Ethridge said it would cost him over $2,000 per shipment.

"It's not worth really it to make ice cream that expensive from a financial perspective," he said. "We would either have to charge a normal price and take a loss, which doesn't really make sense, or charge an exorbitant price for a scoop of ice cream that nobody would probably pay for."

The world relies on the island nation of Madagascar for 80 per cent of its genuine vanilla, so any issues farmers are having there impact people around the world.

A 2017 cyclone in Madagascar damaged about 30 per cent of the island's vanilla crop. And it takes a minimum of two years to produce a crop.

Pound-for-pound, it now costs more than silver, and is the second-most expensive flavouring in the world; only saffron costs more.

Cutting back on a main ingredient

Fadiah Parsons, who owns Something Sweet by Fadiah in Torquay, Sask., said she can't give up on vanilla despite the price.

She said she used to pay $75/litre, but now pays about $185/litre, plus shipping.

"In one week I could go through one litre of vanilla bean paste because I use it in all my cakes, all my Swiss meringue buttercreams, absolutely everything I make," Parsons said. "I have to cut back a little bit and it's not making me happy because I can notice a difference in my product in the taste."

Parsons said the difference between vanilla bean and vanilla extract is like night and day.

"When you use vanilla bean paste or pure vanilla bean, especially from Madagascar, it is like swimming in a pool of cream," she said. "It gives that nice, subtle richness and it's not over tasteful but you know that there's something there that's creating this silkiness and this smooth taste."

Ethridge said he uses vanilla extract in some products, including cones, but it just doesn't measure up to vanilla bean in ice cream. Instead, they've introduced a new flavour called sweet cream, which he calls "vanilla without the vanilla."

Some people say vanilla ice cream might be a thing of the past, but Ethridge said he hopes the vanilla crop bounces back.

"I think vanilla beans are fantastic things, not just for vanilla ice cream, but in all kinds of baking, and there are lots of chefs who use them in all sorts of things. It would be a shame if it were not to recover," he said.

"We'd love to serve vanilla bean ice cream again. It would be a great thing. But if we can't we can't. It's kind of just the way it goes."