This trip made it clear why a nutritional gem like açai had been skipped over by industrial fruit companies. Bananas and pineapples (for example) were good choices when fruit companies went out in the 1940s looking for tropical fruits to industrialize. Back them, explorers were searching for fruits that could be exported or cultivated abroad. Fruits were valued for their sugar content, which makes them last longer during transport. The explorers disregarded superfruits like açai and acerola, which have very little sugar and begin to degrade nutritionally within hours of harvest.

Fast forward to the later part of the 20th century. The major fruit and juice companies are well established, relying on the tried and true: fruits that have lots of juicy calories and very little naturally occurring nutrition. Standing in the rainforest looking up at an açai palm and its fronds of ripe berries, I realized it was the perfect time for healthful innovation with these previously overlooked fruits. In every village, we saw harvesters climb the trees, bring down large bunches of berries, and strip them into baskets. Then they’d take the baskets in canoes or boats up or down the river to a market to sell. Big baskets of what look like blueberries, all lined up, make a beautiful purple landscape all their own.

While people in and around the Amazon have been eating açai for generations close to the source, only recently have we begun developing the science and technology to get the goodness from the tree into finished consumer products.  This is an important science that I’ve been dedicated to from the beginning. Ideally, you want a beverage, for example, that has the same nutritional properties as a fruit has fresh in nature, and free of the synthetic ingredients and sugar loads that have become so common in many juices you find on store shelves today.