Mertens-Talcott et al. 2008
12 healthy adults, single dose
Anthocyanins from açaí reach the blood. Plasma antioxidant capacity also rose after the apple-sauce control.
Know the fruit
What açaí really is.
A small purple fruit from a rainforest palm. Mostly seed, wrapped in a thin coat of pulp — and that thin coat is everything we sell.
Everything on this page is sourced. It describes açaí in general, not a promise about our product. Our own batch will be lab-tested and the results published.
Inside one fruit
A big seed, a thin coat.
An açaí fruit is about the size of a blueberry, but it is built completely differently. It is a drupe: a hard, fibrous seed inside a skin with a thin, oily layer of pulp — around a millimetre thick.
In the wild açaí of the western Amazon (Euterpe precatoria), skin and pulp together are only about a third of the fruit’s weight; the seed is the rest. Other sources report even less, so we will weigh it ourselves in the pilot.
You can’t just eat açaí like a berry. The pulp is rubbed off the seeds with a little water, which turns it into the thick purple “vinho” Brazilians drink. Freeze-drying then removes that water again.
The palm around Envira
Two palms share one name.
| Euterpe precatoria — “açaí-solteiro” | Euterpe oleracea — “açaí-do-pará” | |
|---|---|---|
| Grows | Single stem, wild in the western Amazon (Amazonas, Acre, Peru, Bolivia) | Clumps of many stems, Amazon estuary (Pará, Amapá); widely planted |
| Height | About 20 m on average, up to 35 m | 15–20 m |
| Anthocyanins (lab) | About 3,460 mg/kg | About 2,250 mg/kg |
| Loss at 80 °C (lab) | About 10 % | About 34 % |
| Harvest | One trunk per palm — it must be climbed, never felled | Several trunks; easier to reach |
Sources: Embrapa ComTec 29 (2005), Embrapa Acre Doc. 166 (2020), Pacheco-Palencia et al. 2009 (lab measurements, not health effects). Neighbouring Feijó in Acre holds Brazil’s first geographical indication for açaí, for wild E. precatoria.
From palm to powder
Fast, hot, then cold.
- Climb. A harvester climbs the trunk with a peconha and cuts the ripe bunch. A bunch weighs 2–11 kg.
- Hurry. The fruit doesn’t ripen any more and starts to change within hours. Embrapa recommends processing within 24–48 hours.
- Heat. Brazilian law requires blanching and pasteurising at 80 °C or more for 10 seconds. This protects against a parasite that can survive in raw pulp, even frozen.
- Pulp. The pulp is rubbed off the seeds with water and filtered.
- Freeze-dry. The water is removed in a vacuum at low temperature. No carrier is needed, so the powder stays 100 % açaí. Spray-drying usually needs maltodextrin to work.
Our rough estimate is 10–18 kg of fresh fruit for 1 kg of powder. That is a calculation, not a measurement — we will publish the real number from the pilot.
What’s inside
A fruit that behaves like a nut.
Published values for freeze-dried açaí pulp (Euterpe oleracea) per 100 g. They are literature values, not our product label — the powder from Envira may differ and will be lab-tested per batch.
| Per 100 g | Schauss et al. 2006 | Oliveira et al. 2020 |
|---|---|---|
| Energy | 534 kcal | 592 kcal |
| Fat | 32.5 g | 49.1 g |
| Fibre | 44.2 g | 20.3 g |
| Protein | 8.1 g | 9.2 g |
| Sugars | low | 2.7 g |
| Main fatty acid | Oleic acid, about 54 % of fatty acids | — |
| Anthocyanins | 319 mg | 127 mg |
Honest about science
What research actually says.
Açaí has been studied in the lab and in a handful of small human studies. Here is a fair selection. None of this is a claim about our powder, and açaí is not a medicine.
Udani et al. 2011
10 overweight adults, open pilot, no control group
Some blood values changed over 30 days. No placebo, very small, industry-funded.
Alqurashi et al. 2016
23 overweight men, randomised crossover, single dose
A short-term change in a blood-vessel function measurement after an açaí smoothie.
Kim et al. 2018
37 adults, 12 weeks, placebo-controlled
Two stress markers changed; blood sugar and blood fats did not. The authors call it weak evidence.
Aranha et al. 2020
69 adults, 60 days, placebo-controlled
One oxidative-stress marker changed; blood fats and blood sugar did not.
dos Reis et al. 2023
12 men, placebo-controlled
The only human study we found with dried Euterpe precatoria — the species around Envira. Very small.
In one sentence: the colour pigments of açaí are absorbed by the body, and small studies saw short-term changes in some blood markers — but there is no solid evidence for effects on blood fats, blood sugar, weight or disease. The US National Center for Complementary and Integrative Health says the same. We sell açaí as what it is: a remarkable fruit.
Did you know
Twelve things about açaí.
Mostly seed
Each fruit is a hard seed wrapped in a thin layer of skin and pulp. In the wild açaí of the western Amazon that layer is only about a third of the fruit’s weight.
Yuyama et al. 2011, Acta Amazonica
A palm, not a bush
Around Envira, açaí grows on single-stemmed palms (Euterpe precatoria) that average about 20 m and can reach 35 m.
Embrapa Acre, Doc. 166 (2020)
Climbed by hand
Harvesters climb with a peconha, a simple foot loop made of palm leaf or sacking, and cut the bunch with a knife.
Embrapa, Cultivo do açaizeiro, ch. 16
Heavy bunches
One bunch weighs 2–11 kg; about 70 % of it is fruit.
Embrapa Acre, Doc. 166
It doesn’t wait
Açaí does not ripen after picking. Around 20 % of its anthocyanins can be gone about 10 hours after harvest.
Embrapa Acre, citing Schwob 2012 and others
Heat first, by law
Brazil requires the fruit to be blanched and the pulp pasteurised at 80 °C or more for at least 10 seconds.
MAPA IN 37/2018
A fatty fruit
Unlike most fruit, açaí pulp is rich in fat — mostly oleic acid, the main fatty acid of olive oil — and low in sugar.
Schauss et al. 2006; Oliveira et al. 2020
Where the purple comes from
The deep colour comes from anthocyanins, mainly cyanidin-3-glucoside and cyanidin-3-rutinoside.
Schauss et al. 2006
Two species, one name
In Brazilian law, “açaí” means pulp from two palms: Euterpe oleracea (multi-stemmed, Pará) and Euterpe precatoria (single-stemmed, western Amazon).
MAPA IN 37/2018
2 million tonnes
Brazil harvested about 2 million tonnes of açaí in 2024. Roughly 9 in 10 tonnes came from the state of Pará.
IBGE SIDRA 1613 / 289
From the forest
Açaí is Brazil’s most valuable non-timber forest product.
IBGE PEVS 2023
Read the label
Brazilian rules allow “dehydrated açaí” to contain maltodextrin as long as at least 20 % of the solids are açaí.
MAPA IN 37/2018
Envira in numbers
A river town without a road.
- 17,186 people (census 2022)
- 612 t of wild açaí harvested in the municipality in 2024 (IBGE PEVS) — up from 172 t in 2023; we are checking locally why
- 0 road connections — boats and small planes only
- 7.43° S · 70.02° W, in the Juruá basin of south-western Amazonas
Sources
Read it yourself.
- Embrapa Acre, Documentos 166 (2020) — Euterpe precatoria
- Yuyama et al. 2011, Acta Amazonica 41(4)
- Rocha et al. 2025, Plants (review of E. precatoria)
- Pacheco-Palencia, Duncan & Talcott 2009, Food Chemistry
- Schauss et al. 2006, J Agric Food Chem 54:8598
- Oliveira et al. 2020, Food Science and Technology 40(2)
- MAPA Instrução Normativa 37/2018 (Brazil)
- IBGE SIDRA tables 1613 and 289
- US NCCIH: Açaí — usefulness and safety
- Baptista et al. 2021, Nutrition Reviews (review of human studies)
Collected on 5 November 2026. Lab values describe açaí in general; they are not nutrition or health claims for our product.