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General Mills and Nestlé pledged to not use synthetic vanilla flavoring in their jointly owned Häagen-Dazs products. Proponents of synthetic vanilla argue that it could reduce land impacts associated with vanilla bean production, while opponents maintain that the product could reduce biodiversity by incentivizing new sugarcane production.

Ice cream brand Breyers committed to sourcing 100% of its vanilla from sustainable sources in Madagascar, in partnership with the Rainforest Alliance. The company built on this commitment by creating a policy that restricts the use of milk and cream from cows treated with artificial growth hormones in its products.

As a punishing drought continues to grip California and other areas, scientists are exploring hardy succulents as a pathway to genetically engineer plants to use less water. Agave and other succulents such as the prickly pear, pineapple and vanilla have evolved to perform a different kind of photosynthesis that enable their survival in semiarid environments. These species absorb most of their carbon dioxide at night rather than during the day, as most plants do, meaning less water evaporates off the leaves through transpiration.