Supplier Background

From cottage industry to gourmet success story At the core of Equagold’s business and derived from the company’s origins is our vanilla business. Vanilla Direct® started as a small cottage business importing vanilla and making vanilla extract for the New Zealand retail gourmet food market and the food service industry.

Equagold® describes the origins of the Vanilla itself. Grown in a narrow band either side of the equator and sometimes referred to as “black gold”, the name simply means Equator Gold. Whether you choose Equagold’s plump moist pods, pure vanilla extracts or the range of Vanilla syrups, you can be assured that we do all we can to keep the products as pure as we can in our manufacturing methods, and endeavour not to compromise all that is natural in the vanilla pods themselves.

Equagold is in partnership with a co-op in Papua New Guinea, in the Torricelli Ranges. We have a partnership with a NZ family who grew up in PNG, and who are known as ‘one of their own’. The Vanilla is grown under purely natural methods, without the use of any chemicals, and by using any available vegetation as mulch and fertiliser. ‘Bio-grown” you might say.