Move over açaí – the Amazon has more ‘superfoods’ to offer

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

Like Cupuaçu… Taperebá… Bacaba… Açaí berries – these strange fruits are rich in antioxidants, fiber or fatty acids.

If Brazil gets its way, they could soon be popping up in your social media feeds and sold in chic cafes across the UK, Europe and the US.

This is part of a bold plan by the country hosting the COP30 UN climate talks to tackle climate change, protect nature and create wealth in the face of severe regional poverty.

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

The drink he gave me to try is sandy and tastes like unsweetened chocolate.

“We focus primarily on nutrition and the health benefits that these Amazon ingredients provide,” he explains.

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

It sounds like a marketing pitch, and the company’s stylish packaging promises “ancestral ingredients” and “the power of purple berries from the forest.”

Scientific research on the benefits of “superfoods” is limited, but Eating Amazonian berries is generally considered to be good for you.

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

Raw fruit, which spoils within a few days of picking, is expensive to transport. But if companies freeze the dry ingredients into powder to sell to supermarkets or ship abroad, “that would retain more nutritional value and would be a smart way to keep more economic value in Brazil,” he explains.

The laboratory in Belém’s Bioeconomy Park helps small companies test new ways to preserve fruit.

“Humans have been feeding on these forests for over 10,000 years. There are many, many, many undiscovered superfoods,” says Max.

Covering 6 million square kilometers (2.3 million square miles), the Amazon rainforest has always been full of natural riches. But for decades its vast ecosystem has been decaying; Areas are cut down to sell timber or to make room for cattle or crops such as soy.

This has damaged one of the world’s greatest defenses against climate change: trees that absorb planet-warming carbon dioxide.

Unusually, More than two-thirds of Brazil’s greenhouse gas emissions come from land use and agricultureinstead of energy like most countries. These emissions mostly come from cutting down forests or growing large amounts of food.

President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has pledged to halve deforestation by 2030. In the 12 months to July 2025, rates have reached their lowest level in 11 years.

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

Brazil promotes the idea of ​​creating a successful economy by using natural resources sustainably, protecting nature to preserve the vitality of the soil, and developing valuable products including fuels, medicines, and foods.

Building this “bio-economy” features strongly in the national climate action plan.

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

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

“We plant native Amazon trees and coffee together. The trees shade the coffee plants, and farmers can grow their own food around these plants,” he says.

“When the coffee plant dies, the trees remain as forest, which helps regenerate the Amazon.”

The fresh brew I was given has a light, fruity taste, and he’s proud that three of his coffees were named among the top 30 coffees in Brazil in the national Coffee of the Year competition.

“If we want to stop more trees from being cut down, we need to offer people an alternative income and a sustainable lifestyle,” says Sarah.

Whatever the next Amazon superfood is, it will have to challenge açaí. The purple fruit is grown and eaten in large quantities in northern Brazil and sells for around £10 ($13) per smoothie bowl in parts of London.

Damien Benoit sells açaí ice cream in Europe. “It’s very high in antioxidants, fibre, unsaturated fatty acids and different minerals, making it very popular among people who work out,” he says.

He works with families who maintain four hectares of açai plants in the forest, “with a minimum number of species to monitor per hectare.”

“We ensure that children go to school and gender equality is a very important issue for us,” she claims.

These small companies cannot feed millions of people on their own, and have so far prospered through donations or capital from charities and funds that invest in companies that aim to protect nature.

And there are questions about how big they can be.

If açaí cultivation spreads to many industrial-sized plantations, it could begin to cause the same problems that people like Damien are trying to solve.

But there’s a reason the word “bioeconomy” is plastered all over the UN climate talks.

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

“And we can’t do that if we don’t have biologically based solutions,” he says.

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

Brazil has also promised a fourfold increase in biofuel use by 2035, which may be controversial. Biofuels such as ethanol are often touted as replacing fossil fuels, but they can lead to deforestation as demand for crops to be burned to make fuel increases.

Some worry this will lead to unsustainable extraction, export and burning of timber or sugar cane, and the theft of indigenous peoples’ lands.

Ms Yang says it is important to put measures such as strong regulation in place.

“Not all bio-based transitions are good,” he says.

“If they’re causing habitat destruction or if they don’t have good social practices, then that’s not solving the real problem.”