Goodness Vanilla has been synonymous with the finest all-natural vanilla in the world for over a decade. Goodness Vanilla is one of the most popular ingredients in cross-country cuisines today, thanks to the temperate climate of the mystic mountains of the Western Ghats and the dedicated and hardworking planter community.
Around 1996, falling prices for rubber, coconut, and coffee forced desperate South Indian farmers to switch to a more profitable crop. Dr. Mahendran, an ardent farmer from Pollachi, was chosen by fate to cultivate a foreign orchid that no one in the land had grown commercially or successfully before. Cultivating Vanilla, the humble orchid that yields the world's second most expensive spice after saffron, was the beginning of an earnest and sincere effort known as the Indian Vanilla Initiative. The initiative, led by the astute Dr. Mahendran, saw Vanilla flourish in the hospitable environment of the Western Ghats through intercropping and with minimal investment.
