Zebeline Ertance is transforming the vanilla industry in Madagascar by ensuring that farmers, particularly women, receive fair compensation. Her business policy rejects child labour, allowing children to remain in school and helping local communities to thrive.
Madagascar is the world’s leading producer of vanilla, supplying approximately 80% of the global market. The archipelago has gained international media attention due to the use of child labour in its vanilla industry.
Despite vanilla being the second most expensive spice in the world (sometimes exceeding $244 per kilogram), farmers in Madagascar endure extreme poverty and struggle to provide food for their families.
Farmers seldom sell to exporters or international buyers but to middlemen who offer very low prices. The local farmers, lacking bargaining power, are compelled to comply, thus remaining trapped in cycles of low income.
Zebeline Ertance founded Videeko Vanilla ZP to change this narrative. She grew up in a community where the only business opportunities came with exploitation from global corporations that swooped in and stripped the land, leaving nothing behind for the people.
But Zebeline Ertance has a different blueprint. Having watched her brother Riel build multiple businesses of his own, her desire to create change was stirred. So, in 2019, she started Videeko Vanilla ZP in Mananara, Madagascar.
It’s not just vanilla, it’s premium vanilla
Videeko Vanilla ZP specialises in farming, curing, handling, and exporting premium organic Madagascar vanilla beans and vanilla powder. The company strongly emphasises sustainability, fair trade, and community development.
It produces high-quality Bourbon vanilla beans, certified organic by the USDA and EcoCert. These beans are renowned for their rich flavour, aroma, and moist texture. The company is also one of only 70 licensed vanilla exporters in Madagascar, ensuring compliance with government regulations.
Videeko supplies its products to international markets and collaborates with prestigious culinary institutions, including Le Cordon Bleu in New Zealand. The company also employs sustainable agricultural practices that help protect the rainforest biodiversity in the Mananara region.
Videeko holds multiple certifications, including ISO 22000 for food safety, SA8000 for social accountability, HACCP for hazard control, and Kosher certification.
Zebeline Ertance works directly with over 100 families, primarily women, single mothers, young widows, and daughters, giving them jobs that pay fair wages.
Madagascar’s child labour problem
Child labour is a real issue in Madagascar’s vanilla industry, as vanilla farming happens in some of the poorest rural areas, especially in the northeast. Most families are subsistence farmers, meaning they live off what they grow. When vanilla prices rise, the workload increases, and so does the temptation (or pressure) to involve every available hand, including children.
Children between the ages of 12 and 17 have been reported doing things like hand-pollinating vanilla flowers (a delicate job usually done early in the morning), harvesting and carrying vanilla beans, sorting, drying, and curing vanilla pods, and walking long distances through forests to reach farms. Some kids work before or after school, others don’t go to school at all, especially during harvest season.
There are laws against child labour in Madagascar, and the government has worked with international groups (like the ILO) to address the issue. However, corruption, poor infrastructure, and lack of resources make enforcement difficult.
Regarding this, Ertance made sure her company was SA8000 certified, meaning no kids on the farm were involved in shady labour. She also created the Nosy Foundation to build schools, provide healthcare, supply food, and fix broken infrastructure.
