Uploaded July 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
Fabio Parmeggiani, Francesco Gatti and Elisabetta Brenna give a talk entitled “The Wonders of Vanilla: Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Synthetic Vanillin”. This talk was given on Wednesday 15 July 2026.
The history of vanilla, one of the world's most cherished flavour ingredients, is fascinating and uniquely rich. In this talk, the journey from the origins of vanilla in the tropical forests of Mesoamerica to the modern methods for global production by manual pollination will be presented. The chemical composition of vanilla will be examined, with a historical focus on the discovery of the key component, vanillin, and on the development of its first practical synthetic route, patented in 1874 by Wilhelm Haarmann (celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2024). Modern production methods, and the state-of-the-art techniques of isotopic analysis for authenticating the origin of vanillin samples will also be illustrated, in the perspective of combating fraud and protecting the market of one of the world’s most cherished flavour ingredients.
Fabio Parmeggiani, Francesco Gatti and Elisabetta Brenna give a talk entitled “The Wonders of Vanilla: Celebrating the 150th Anniversary of Synthetic Vanillin”. This talk was given on Wednesday 15 July 2026.
The history of vanilla, one of the world's most cherished flavour ingredients, is fascinating and uniquely rich. In this talk, the journey from the origins of vanilla in the tropical forests of Mesoamerica to the modern methods for global production by manual pollination will be presented. The chemical composition of vanilla will be examined, with a historical focus on the discovery of the key component, vanillin, and on the development of its first practical synthetic route, patented in 1874 by Wilhelm Haarmann (celebrating its 150th anniversary in 2024). Modern production methods, and the state-of-the-art techniques of isotopic analysis for authenticating the origin of vanillin samples will also be illustrated, in the perspective of combating fraud and protecting the market of one of the world’s most cherished flavour ingredients.
