Processing

Our acai comes from Pará in northern Brazil. Local people who make their living from harvesting acai berries are known as ribeirinhos or “people who live on the river’s riverines”. These ribeirinhos form cooperatives to harvest the acai fruit daily and take it to marketplaces before it is transported downriver for processing. The fresh berries are then carefully cleaned and washed before the pulp is extracted and frozen. Our Acai is freeze dried within 24 hours of being harvested to preserve the product without the use of preservatives of irradiation.

The quality of our freeze dried acai powder is apparent from the colour; a vibrant deep purple produced by the anthocyanins cyanidin 3-glucoside and cyanidin 3-rutinoside. Freeze drying involves exposing the acai pulp to temperatures of – 40°C whilst in a vacuum environment, which eliminates all water through a process called sublimation. Over-processing of acai through other methods of preservation such as spray drying (heating to temperatures over 80°C to remove moisture) and standard freezing can result in an unpleasant brown powder.

Country of Origin: Brazil