Rainforest Foods Acai Berry Powder

Acai is a small purple rainforest berry, regarded widely as one of the Earth's most nutritious foods. It contains abundant antioxidants, healthy omega fats, amino acids and dietary fibre. It also has a rich, cocoa-and-fruit taste. Acai boosts energy and strengthens the immune system, which is why it has recently become a dietary sensation among world-class athletes. Adding Rainforest Foods Acai berry to your food is rather like eating the fabled Mediterranean diet, in easily-managed form. Rainforest Foods sells the first Acai berry products to have met the stringent requirements of the Soil Association.  

The fruit of the Acai palm, or Euterpe oleracea, Acai is a small purple berry. Originally a wild tree, it is produced by local farmers in the Brazilian Amazon region. Acai has been for centuries one of the staples of the local diet, and has only recently been introduced to an export market. Rainforest Foods Acai berry is sourced from one of the leading Acai producers in the world. Our producer’s founders discovered Acai during a Millennium-Eve surfing trip, and have since created a FairTrade-accredited supply chain that benefits thousands of local families while protecting the Amazon rainforest through sustainable agriculture. A portion of all profits made by our producer is returned to the Amazon to promote education, provide health care and to enable the protection of the rainforest. Acai berry has a significant nutritional profile, providing Calcium, Iron, protein and dietary fibre. Its Omega 6 and Omega 9 fatty acid content is significant. It is also a potent source of antioxidants. In fact, Rainforest Foods Acai has an amazing ORAC (oxygen radical absorbance capacity) score of 50,000 units per 100 grammes. To put this into perspective, red grapes score just 740 on the ORAC scale.

Production
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.

Organic Certification
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. The Soil Association code on our products is GB-ORG-05.

Benefits of Barley Grass:

                    - 100% organic Acai powder
                    - certified Product
                    - suitable for Vegans