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Today we welcome Gaël Lescornec, who is the director of the Sustainable Vanilla Initiative.
For context, De Monchy Natural Products is a founding member and committee member of the SVI. This is why we have a particular interest in this organization and to discuss what the organization does, its mission, its achievements, the outlook for the future, and how it can, of course, impact the vanilla industry. Welcome, Gaël.
Thank you very much, Vincent. Thanks for having me.
Could you tell us a little bit about yourself, your journey to becoming the director of the SVI and what motivates you to work in this industry?
Absolutely. I’m French-American and have spent most of my career in South Africa. I now live in the Netherlands. These experiences shaped my values and my interest in sustainable trade.
Growing up in Miami in the 1980s, the focus was on growth at any cost. But my French roots and time in South Africa taught me the importance of equity—ensuring that growth benefits everyone and that value and risk are fairly distributed across supply chains. I worked in cocoa for 10 years before moving to vanilla.
These industries offer a powerful opportunity to make supply chains more equitable and sustainable. My goal is to use trade as a force for good and help build a less fragile world.
To understand SVI, it’s helpful to take a step back. Over the years, we’ve seen that growth without responsibility carries significant risks. Sustainability is no longer just a CSR add-on—it’s essential to future-proof our supply chains.
In many commodity sectors—cocoa, coffee, cotton, palm oil—industry stakeholders have come together to address shared challenges. These multi-stakeholder platforms include industry players, exporters, importers, and public entities, all committed to setting a common direction for healthier supply chains.
SVI was born out of this movement in 2015. This year marks our 10th anniversary. Our mission is to build a more stable vanilla market and promote sustainable vanilla production. Today, we represent over 70% of the global vanilla market in a pre-competitive, non-commercial way. We’re proud to count De Monchy among our members.
What would you say are SVI’s biggest achievements so far?
First, uniting over 70% of the global vanilla market under one platform is a major achievement. Our members include some of the world’s largest brands and flavor houses, as well as local brands and 21 exporters in Madagascar. This collective voice allows us to make meaningful commitments and drive real impact.
Second, we’ve established strong, ongoing engagement at the production level—especially in Madagascar, which produces 80% of the world’s vanilla. Over the past decade, we’ve worked on:
Our third, and perhaps most significant, achievement is the launch of the first public goal for sustainable vanilla—our 2030 Charter. It’s a major milestone for transparency and for boosting confidence in the vanilla market.
That leads nicely into my next question. What are SVI’s top priorities today, especially in the context of the 2030 Charter?
The Charter was born from a consensus among our members that we need to deliver real, measurable impact on the ground. Our priorities include:
Sure. The Charter sets a target of having 50% of the vanilla supply chain sustainably sourced by 2030—a significant leap from today. It defines minimum sustainability practices, including full traceability to the farm or cooperative level, clear actions and roadmaps to close the living income gap for farmers, forest-positive practices and measures to minimize human rights risks.
We also provide tools to help members identify and address risks, both individually and collectively.
Absolutely. One of SVI’s key strengths is creating a forum for collaboration. Larger companies like De Monchy often pioneer programs and can inspire and support smaller operators—whether they’re exporters in Madagascar or small buyers in Europe.
SVI enables knowledge-sharing so that good practices can scale across the industry. No one wins if the sector has a poor reputation, so collaboration is crucial.
One major challenge is that we don’t control how members purchase or stimulate demand. We can promote sustainable procurement practices, but implementation depends on each company.
Another challenge is sector governance, particularly in Madagascar. We maintain a constructive dialogue with authorities, but political and structural issues are complex. That’s why integrating 21 Malagasy exporters into SVI has been so valuable—it brings their voice directly into the conversation.
One major innovation is landscape monitoring. We’ve partnered with MapWorks to use satellite imagery to track deforestation, protected areas, wetlands, and more in real time. We’ve layered this data with GPS points from SVI members’ verified vanilla farms in Madagascar.
This allows us to identify both risks (e.g. deforestation hot spots) and opportunities (e.g. where vanilla positively impacts biodiversity). This data helps guide investments and facilitates public-private partnerships, especially with Madagascar’s Ministry of Environment.
Excellent. Thank you very much. Within all these programs, what kind of improvement would you say SVI has brought to farmers so far?
That’s a great question. I wish we had more data and better tools to measure impact directly at the farmer level. Unfortunately, we’re still lacking visibility—basic things like how many farmers there are or how many plantations exist. That kind of information simply isn’t available yet, and it’s something we’re actively working on with local authorities and stakeholders.
So right now, we often rely on anecdotal data. One example: we’ve been collaborating with a third-party researcher, endorsed by Fair Trade International, to conduct living income studies every two years. These studies help us understand what farmers need to earn a basic living income, and also assess how much company programs are contributing toward that.
The most recent study showed something encouraging: farmers involved in company programs—those aligned with the minimum practices we promote—are seeing significantly better incomes compared to those who aren’t. So while we don’t have full visibility, we do see a clear, positive impact where these programs are in place.
Yes, and to add to that with a concrete example from De Monchy Natural Products: in Madagascar, we’ve built a farmers’ association that now includes over 2,000 farmers. This is how we run our traceability and sustainability efforts.
Our team is regularly in the field, directly engaging with farmers to understand their daily challenges. We try to support them between crop cycles—for example, helping prevent early harvesting and selling of green vanilla. We’ve also built schools that double as community centers, and we’re actively working to combat child labor. So even if we lack hard data, we see firsthand the positive impact these actions have.
Absolutely. That’s a perfect example. What SVI aims to do is take those kinds of stories and successes and figure out how to scale them—how to turn individual impact into collective, measurable progress.
That’s what our 2030 Charter is all about: turning good practices into shared standards and showing the world that the vanilla industry is serious about sustainability.
Exactly. And I can say for our team, being part of SVI has been really inspiring. We learn from what other companies are doing—sometimes very different from our own approach—and we ask, “Could this work for us too?” We exchange ideas, ask how they did it, and see how we can apply it to our own context.
Without SVI, those exchanges wouldn’t happen as easily.
That’s a really good point. Sustainability isn’t always intuitive—especially when it comes to rural development. Most businesses aren’t experts in that. It takes specific knowledge, time, and resources.
That’s the value of platforms like SVI: they allow companies to come together, share lessons, and work through shared challenges, even if they’re coming from very different positions. Some may have more resources or more engaged customers, but the insights they gain benefit everyone when shared.
So far, we’ve spoken at length about what SVI does in Madagascar—its unique challenges and opportunities. But now we’d like to know: does SVI have plans to expand its reach to other vanilla-producing regions, like Uganda, Indonesia, or Papua New Guinea?
That’s a great question. Our mission is to drive a global, stable, and sustainable vanilla market. Naturally, a lot of our work has focused on Madagascar since it produces the majority of the world’s vanilla. But developing alternative origins is also crucial to creating a more stable global market—even for Madagascar’s benefit. Diversification supports resilience across the supply chain.
Specifically, we’ve been quite active in Uganda over the past few years. We’ve been working closely with exporters there, particularly through their association, Fanex. Our goal has been to highlight the unique value of Ugandan vanilla—its quality, and the fact that Uganda benefits from two harvests a year, unlike other origins.
We’ve been running branding and marketing campaigns to better position Ugandan vanilla on the global market. And in the context of our 2030 Charter for Sustainable Vanilla, we see Uganda as a key player. In fact, we’re organizing a workshop next month with exporters and importers to explore how Uganda can align with the charter’s commitments and benefit from them.
Interestingly, Uganda recorded record export numbers last year. We can’t say with certainty what drove that growth, but we hope our efforts to promote the country’s potential contributed. That said, prices remain low, which is a concern. We need to ensure that the value created in the market is also reaching farmers.
Beyond Uganda, we absolutely want to see other origins—like Indonesia and Papua New Guinea—thrive in a sustainable way. We hope that our global initiatives will have ripple effects in those regions as well. But for now, our primary focus remains on Madagascar and Uganda.
All right, fair enough. We’re reaching the end of today’s podcast episode, but before we wrap up, I’d like to ask you:
Where do you see the vanilla industry in 10 years? And how does SVI plan to contribute to that vision?
Our vision is to see a more stable vanilla market. Even a slight improvement in stability would benefit everyone—from end buyers and international importers to exporters and, most importantly, farmers.
Everything we’ve discussed today ultimately aims at reducing the extreme volatility the vanilla market experiences roughly every five years. Mitigating that—even just a little—would make a big difference.
The second part of our vision is about real impact at the farmer level. We want vanilla farmers to take pride in their work and see it as a profession worth passing on to the next generation. In all producing countries, not just Madagascar, we aim to build a thriving, sustainable supply chain that supports livelihoods and communities.
Achieving this requires collective effort. When I say “we,” I mean the entire platform of industry players. We can’t do this alone. We need support from the demand side—brands and retailers that commit to the same practices and principles. We also need engagement from governments—both in producing countries and consumer countries.
For example, the European Union is moving toward stricter due diligence and anti-deforestation regulations. But we need those directives to be clear and aligned in a way that motivates action across the supply chain. At the same time, producing country governments need to create enabling environments and implement policies transparently.
This is a shared responsibility, and we all have a role to play in building a more sustainable vanilla industry.
And for our audience—where can they learn more about SVI?
I’d recommend two places.
First, follow us on LinkedIn—just search for the Sustainable Vanilla Initiative. That’s where we share updates and news regularly.
Second, visit our website: sustainablevanilla.org. It has in-depth information on our programs and showcases the work our member companies are doing.
Perfect. That wraps up our conversation with Gaël Lescornec, Director of the Sustainable Vanilla Initiative.
Thank you so much for speaking with us today.
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