Harvesting Acai

From August to December acai palm produces bunches of about 700-900 fruits. The way to harvest it is to climb all the way up to the top of the tree and then cut the bunches of fruit and carefully toss them down into a waiting net. Ripe acai berries are about the size and the color the grapes but unlike the grape the pulp in acai is only about 20 % of the whole berry, the rest is a solid core, which is used by the locals to produce necklaces and other jewelry. Then berries are moved into large baskets to be transported to a processing plant. After the baskets are weighed and gone through quality control, the berries are placed on a conveyor belt where they are checked once again and then submersed in water for easier separation of the pulp from the core. At the same time samples from each batch are sent to a lab to get the exact nutritional and microbiological data. After the pulp is separated from the core, it is immediately pasteurized in accordance with the required sanitary procedures.

Then comes the interesting part. There are two way to prepare acai for preservation and transportation. The first one is freezing. It is quite popular but has several drawbacks, the main one being is that to sustain the product in this manner, many stabilizers and preservatives have to be used. And when the pulp is finally defrosted it becomes saturated with water, which adversely effects its properties.

Another way is very innovative. It is called sublimation. Technologically it starts with deep freezing and then later replaced with so-called lyophilization – a special process of vacuum drying that freezes out the moisture making the product almost weightless without losing its original taste. And according to nutritionists, freeze dried foods are perfectly absorbed by the body.

After processing acai pulp is then sent around the globe where it is used as an indispensable ingredient in supplements, beverages and cosmetic products.