Acai Origins
Acai Berry is are one of the highest antioxidant (*almost 15 times the antioxidant of blueberry gram for gram) super fruit, rich in healthy essentials fatty acid (almost the same amount of healthy fats as Avocado gram for gram) & dietary fibre and contains Vitamin A and C, protein and many other essential minerals unique to the Amazonian soil.
90% of the Acai Berry is its seed with all the nutritional goodness and taste from 10% of its deep purple skin and pale yellow pulp enveloping the seed. It’s hence essential to process Acai Berry, separating the edible and its inedible parts. The seeds are mainly used to generate fuel or polished to make into accessories in local markets.
Because Acai Berry starts to ferment the moment it’s harvested you’ll never see it in its berry form out of the Amazon forest. Even Brazilians in larger cities like Rio and Sao Paolo consume it in the frozen pulp form. It is essential for it to be transported to the plant immediately after its hand sorted by the Riberenos as it takes just 3-4 days before it dries up and loses all its nutrients.
The Acai Palm, which requires a huge amount of water, grows up to 25m in height near the river deltas of the Amazon Forest. After checking and selecting from different brooms of Acai berries, recipe brooms of Acai berries will be picked from the Acai Palm. Wild harvested by the Riberenos, the ripened and good berries are sorted and selected from their brooms and sent to the plant for cleaning and pulping.
At Gratefood Co, We go straight to the source, the amazing Amazon , forest in Brazil, one of the most bio diverse place on earth
We work with local community to bring you the freshest, premium quality, organic Acai berry wild harvested straight from the Amazon forest.
1.Acai Berries sorted out Only the best and ripened Acai berries are sorted and selected from their brooms and set to the plant for cleaning and processing
2. Soaking of Acai Berries
The process starts with soaking of berries to soften the skin and pulp, which accounts for only 10-15% of the entire berry. This prepares it for easy separation from its seed at the next stage.
3.Funnelling of Acai Berries
The berries are then funnelled into a machine with a rotational beam for separation. The friction will cause the skin and pulp to be separated from the seed easily. Solids and liquids are segregated to different bins at this stage and the liquids are mixed till fine.
4.Removing of impurities from Acai Berries
The fine Acai puree is poured through a mesh to remove any forms of remaining solids, pasteurised (if requested) and dispensed without adding any sweeteners and artificial nasties into the 100g packs.
5.Removing of impurities from Acai Berries
The fine Acai puree is poured through a mesh to remove any forms of remaining solids, pasteurised (if requested) and dispensed without adding any sweeteners and artificial nasties into the 100g packs.
The process starts with soaking of berries to soften the skin and pulp, which accounts for only 10-15% of the entire berry. This prepares it for easy separation from its seed at the next stage. The berries are then funnelled into a machine with a rotational beam for separation. The friction will cause the skin and pulp to be separated from the seed easily. Solids and liquids are segregated to different bins at this stage and the liquids are mixed till fine. The fine Acai pulp is poured through a mesh to remove any forms of remaining solids, and at Gratefood Co, we do not add any forms of sweeteners and artificial nasties into our Acai pulp, we packed them into 100g packs as it is after pulping.
These packs are stacked in trays and immediately sent to the cold storage to be frozen and then shipped.
The entire process of harvesting till freezing is completed within 48 hours as Acai berries are highly perishable and this is our commitment to bring to our consumers the freshest Acai berries out of the Amazon forest.
Even for pure Acai pulp, not all Acai offerings in the market is the same, here’s how to differentiate the quality of organic Acai pulp.
Different Kinds of Acai
Apart from #1 - the pure organic Acai pulp (the freshest and healthiest form), it is common for brands to have it processed into many other forms for the consumer market. Here’s the different forms and how you can differentiate as a consumer.
Choose your Acai Well So depending on your own health priorities and conditions, you should choose the different kinds of Acai accordingly but even for #1 - the pure organic Acai pulp (the freshest and healthiest form), not all offerings in the market is the same, read this article to learn how to tell the differentiate the quality of pure organic Acai pulp in the market. Click here to read article on How to Differentiate the Quality of Acai