Rainforest Foods Organic Freeze Dried Acai Berry Powder 125g

Acai berry is the small, purple berry of the Acai palm (Euterpe oleracea), a tree native to the Brazilian Amazon region. Acai berry recently became a dietary sensation among top-flight athletes, because it is quite simply one of the earth’s most nutritious foods.

The broad spectrum of nutrition provided by Acai berry includes an exceptionally high antioxidant content. Acai berry also features a plentiful supply of Omega fatty acids in the same ratio of Omega 6 to Omega 9 found in olive oil.

Acai berry supplies protein and dietary fibre. It also offers Calcium and Iron. Pronounced ‘ah-sigh-ee’, this darling of the superfood scene makes a great basic dietary supplement for almost anyone.

Rainforest Foods Acai berry is sourced from one of the world’s leading producers. Its founders discovered Acai berry during a Millennium-eve surfing trip, and have since created a FairTrade-accredited supply chain that benefits thousands of local families, as well as protecting the Amazon rainforest through sustainable agriculture. A portion of all its profits is returned to the Amazon to promote education, provide health care and enable rainforest protection. This approach has won it major awards.

Originally a wild plant, the Acai palm is now cultivated by farmers in Brazil, where it grows under rainforest conditions. Acai berry is picked by hand from the topmost branches of the tree. Its high fat content means that it can go off rapidly, so it is rushed to a processing plant once picked. Here it is pressed to extract the fruit pulp. There are several ways to process Acai pulp, but the most preservative of nutrients is freeze-drying – rapidly freezing the pulp then warming and depressurising it to vaporise the frozen water content. This is, naturally, how Rainforest Foods Acai berry is dealt with. The freeze-dried pulp is milled to powder form and packed for transport. It takes over 20kg of fruit to make 1kg of Rainforest Foods Acai berry powder.

Rainforest Foods Acai berry powder is certified by the Soil Association, one of a handful of organic certification bodies in the UK. These are regulated in their turn by DEFRA (Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs). The role of the Soil Association is to ensure that all foods sold as organic are definably so. It does this by auditing every stage of the supply chain, through growth, export and processing. Soil Association certification – indicated by the Soil Association logo and the EU organic leaf symbol on our packaging – is a guarantee that our customers are purchasing an organic product. All organically-certified products must also carry a certification code on their packaging. For UK companies such as Rainforest Foods this has the format GB-ORG-XX, XX indicating the certifying body. If this is not present, a product is not organic.