Açaí is everywhere – but the next ‘superfood’ could emerge from the Amazon

In a laboratory in a renovated warehouse on the banks of a raging, brown river in Belém, Brazil, machines are preparing candidates for the next global “superfood.”

Cupuaçu… Taperebá… Bacaba… Like açaí berries – this unusual fruit is rich in antioxidants, fiber or fatty acids.

If Brazil has its way, they could soon be popping up on your social media feeds and being sold in trendy cafes in the UK, Europe and the US.

It is part of a bold plan by the country, which hosts COP30 of the UN climate talks, to tackle climate change, protect nature and create wealth despite significant regional poverty.

“There are a lot of superfoods in the forest that people don’t know about,” says Max Petrucci, founder of local company Mahta, which sells cocoa powder and Brazil nuts for shakes.

The drink he gave me to try is crunchy and tastes like sugar-free chocolate.

“First, we’re focused on the nutrition and health benefits these Amazonian ingredients provide,” he explains.

But the other benefit, he explains, is “social and environmental.” He says they pay fair prices and only buy from farmers who practice sustainable agriculture.

It sounds like a marketing ploy, with the company’s slick packaging promising “ancestral ingredients” and “purple berry power.”

Scientific research on the benefits of “superfoods” is limited, but It is widely known that eating Amazonian fruit is good for you.

Larissa Bueno, also from Mahta, explains that they only sell powdered food – “similar to Huel in the UK”, she says.

Transporting raw fruit that decomposes a few days after picking is expensive. But if companies freeze-dried ingredients into a powder to sell to supermarkets or ship abroad, “it retains more nutritional value and it’s a smart way to keep more economic value in Brazil,” she explains.

The laboratory in the Bioeconomy park in Belém helps small companies test new ways of preserving fruit.

“People have been eating from these forests for over 10,000 years. There are many, many, many undiscovered superfoods,” says Max.

The Amazon rainforest, which covers 6 million square kilometers (2.3 million square miles), has always been full of natural riches. But for decades its vast ecosystem has been collapsing, with areas being cut down to sell timber or make room for livestock or crops such as soybeans.

This has damaged one of the Earth’s greatest protections against climate change – trees that absorb the carbon dioxide that warms the planet.

Unusually, more than two-thirds of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions come from land use and agricultureand not energy like in most countries. These emissions mostly come from cutting down forests or growing large quantities of food.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to halve deforestation by 2030. In the 12 months to July 2025, rates hit an 11-year low.

But the forest is a resource. Almost 30 million people living in the Amazon region and throughout Brazil need and want to earn a living.

Brazil is pushing the idea of ​​building an advanced economy through the sustainable use of natural resources, preserving nature to protect the country’s vitality, and developing valuable products including fuels, medicine and food.

The construction of this “bioeconomy” is strongly emphasized in the national climate action plan.

Sarah Sampaio runs a small coffee business that grows coffee beans in the shade of trees, using a method called agroforestry – or agriculture that helps grow forests.

She works with about 200 farming families in the Apui region, which has one of the highest rates of deforestation.

“We plant native Amazonian trees and coffee together. The trees shade the coffee plants and farmers can also grow their own food around those plants,” she says.

“When the coffee plant dies, the trees remain as a forest, so it helps restore the Amazon.”

The fresh brew I received has a light, fruity taste, and she is proud that three of her coffees were selected among the top 30 in Brazil at the national coffee of the year competition.

“If we want to prevent more trees from being cut down, we need to provide people with an alternative income, a sustainable way of life,” says Sarah.

Whatever the next Amazonian superfood is, it will have to challenge açaí. The purple berry is grown and eaten in huge quantities in northern Brazil and sells for nearly £10 ($13) a smoothie bowl in parts of London.

Damien Benoit sells açaí ice cream in Europe. “It is very rich in antioxidants, fiber and unsaturated fatty acids and various minerals that make it very popular among people who play sports,” he says.

He works with families who keep four hectares of açai plants in the forest “with a minimum number of species per hectare that must be monitored.”

“We make sure that children go to school, and gender equality is a big topic for us,” he claims.

These small businesses alone cannot feed millions of people and have so far thrived thanks to donations or capital from charities and funds that invest in companies whose goal is to protect nature.

And there are questions about how much they can increase.

If açaí production were to spread to many industrial plantations, it could cause exactly the same problems that people like Damien are trying to solve.

But there’s a reason the word “bioeconomy” appears at all UN climate talks.

“We need to move away from a world dependent on fossil fuels – that much is clear,” says Ana Yang, director of the Center for Environment and Society at Chatham House.

“And if we don’t have biobased solutions, we won’t be able to do that,” she says.

This is by no means a magical solution to the problem of how to replace fossil fuels with clean energy and use the land in a way that protects nature.

Brazil has also pledged to quadruple the use of biofuels, which can be controversial, by 2035. Biofuels such as ethanol are often touted as a replacement for fossil fuels, but they can lead to deforestation as demand increases to burn crops to make fuel.

Some are concerned that this will lead to unsustainable exploitation of timber or sugarcane for export and burning, and to the theft of indigenous peoples’ land.

Ms. Yang says it is essential to introduce safeguards such as strict regulation.

“Not all biological transitions are good,” she says.

“If they lead to the destruction of natural habitat or don’t have good social practices, then it doesn’t solve the original problem.”