Vanillin is the most important flavour compound in vanilla, and is often used to replace the extract. Vanillin can be obtained from vanilla beans, but because the high costs of the beans, various other production methods have been developed.
It is produced though fermentation of unripe fruits of
Vanilla planifolia. Vanilla extract ocnatin vanillin as a major component (2-3%), the flavor, moreover , result from the composition of a host of many accompanying compounds, such as p-hydroxybenzaldehyde (2), 4-hydroxybenzaldehyde (2) and vanillic acid (3).
By far the cheapest production method is chemical synthesis. Most of the vanillin used in foods and by other industries is synthetic. For many years, vanillin was obtained from lignin by alkaline hydrolysis, since conifer wood contains up to 30% of its lignin as coniferyl alcohol derived from ferulic acid.
Today most synthetic vanillin is synthesized chemically from guaiacol in a cleaner process that has reduced the environmental impact compared with production from lignin.
Production of vanillin
