# How we get Acai juice
Acai juice has become a highly desired nutritional supplement often sold in health food stores and upper end supermarkets throughout the world. To supply this growing worldwide market whole regions of Brazilian rain Forrest have been transformed into Acai berry farms. One estimate is that this expanding agricultural industry now employ thirty thousand people a year.
The Acai berry is extremely perishable and must be consumed or frozen within a period of twenty four hours from picking. It was not until modern
freezing and transport methods of the last few decades that it was possible to get Acai anywhere but locally where it is grown. Native to the flood plains of the Amazon estuary in many places the Acai palm grows rapidly as a weed.
The fruit which is a major dietary food source of many of the Amazonian river tribes must be labor intensively picked by hand. Existing farms are often located as close to the form of transport as possible, usually a river. With acai harvesting and processing it is always a race with time.