Widely considered as a super food owing to its high nutritional qualities, acai berries are rapidly gaining traction in the food and beverage industry, and also to a lesser extent in the medicine and cosmetics sector. With health and food industries promoting the fruit as an effective weight loss remedy, and growing awareness among consumers towards healthier lifestyles, the sales and use of acai berry products is anticipated to generate a healthy growth of the acai berry market in the years to come. Producers are increasingly focusing on improving the production, collection, and processing operations, with an aim of improving grower incomes, and building an active workforce base for the sector.
What are the major challenges faced by acai berry producers?
Grown primarily in Central and South American countries, the production of acai berries today is introducing local farmers to agroforestry systems, on a global scale. One of the key challenges faced by producers is that the pulp of the fruit, which contains nearly all of the key nutrients is a very small part of the entire fruit. The remainder comprises of a relatively large but useless seed, which makes the extraction of enough fruit pulp for the world’s demand, quite challenging. Producers are also increasingly facing challenges posed by climate change, including intense droughts and irregular patterns of rainfall.
What are the factors driving the nutraceutical applications of the acai berry?
Rising awareness about the risks of unhealthy lifestyle choices and intense promotion of natural super foods for medicine and cosmetic purposes are driving the surging demand for related powder, capsule, or tablet products. The high antioxidant capacity of acai berries is a key factor that is driving the consumption and revenue share of its nutraceutical applications, globally.
On the other hand, scientists from the Texas A&M University and the Duke University School of Medicine, stated findings from research which state that the actual benefits of the acai fruit fall short of the hype created through marketers.
What attributes make Brazil a top acai berry producer?
Amongst all global acai berry producers, Brazil leads on the basis of production volume by a large margin, accounting for more than three quarters of the global production. This can be attributed to the large tracts of forest land, and favorable weather present in the Brazilian state of Para, which is the largest acai producing region in the country. Moreover, Brazil provides manufacturers with low costs for labor and business friendly government policies.
What factors affect the fluctuating prices of acai berries?
The price points of acai berries are largely driven by the restricted production regions around the world, increasingly unpredictable weather and resultant loss or increase of crops, the increasing use of powdered acai berry instead of its liquid form, are some of the constantly changing factors that affect the price of the price of the end product, restricting the market in the long term.
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