At Fruit Towers, the playfully named headquarters of Innocent Drinks in west London, the destruction of the Amazon and the role of the ribeirinhos has not gone unnoticed. One of the company's best-selling fruit smoothies contains a small amount of pulped a�ai (ass-eye-ee), a berry that grows only within 25 yards of the Amazon's banks. To harvest it, the palm on which it grows does not have to be cut down; better still, it thrives in the shade of other rainforest trees such as rubber, Brazil nut, cabbage palm and miriti palm, encouraging growers to mimic nature rather than plant a�ai in endless regimented rows - the kind of monoculture that destroys biodiversity.
'We buy 300 tonnes of frozen pulp a year from our supplier, Sambazon,' says Richard Reed, co-founder of Innocent, 'and we're paying them �1,300 a tonne. That puts about �300,000 a year into those riverbank communities.'
In the Amazon, where 90 per cent of ribeirinho families survive on less than US$4 (�1.90) a day, such shared income goes a long way. What's more, Sambazon guarantees to buy all the a�ai its suppliers produce, eliminating risk to the grower. It calculates the average daily market price, then adds a five per cent premium - which is why Sambazon's pulp (but not Innocent's smoothie) is certified by the US Fair Trade Federation. Sambazon pays cash up-front instead of making farmers wait, and buys direct from the grower to cut out middlemen. Organic, processed in a pristine new factory and fully traceable to the person who grew it, the a�ai used by Sambazon and Innocent typically fetches 44 reais (�12) a sack compared to 15 reais five years ago.
Irrigated twice a day by the tidal waters of the Amazon, the a�ai tree requires little maintenance. Prune it occasionally and keep the grove free of weeds and disease, and it will keep producing fruit - eight to 12 baskets in two hours of picking, from a plot no bigger than a large suburban garden. If managed properly, an acre of rainforest will yield 14 tonnes of berries a year.
It is a high-income, low-impact crop for sure, but that is not the only reason it appears in Innocent's portfolio. A�ai is also the ultimate superfruit, its reddish skin containing anthocyanins (plant chemicals that neutralise the 'free radicals' associated with disease and ageing) and other antioxidants. Weight for weight, a�ai contains 60 per cent more antioxidants than the acclaimed pomegranate, 2.7 times more than blueberries and over six times more than strawberries. Beneath its skin is a yellowish fat, making it rich in calories.
Cold Acai juice is like a fruit smoothy or a chocolate shake... but its better. So much better. Its loaded with fiber and protein so it congeals into... the best dessert I've ever had.
