Vitamin-C-Rich Juice Could Replace Cocaine as Jungle Export

Cerveceria San Juan SA, a brewery owned by Peru’s Backus group, is selling a vitamin-C-packed Amazonian fruit juice, camu-camu, and is exporting all of it to Japan.

Aside from its ability to bolster the world’s immune system against the common cold, camu-camu may also help wean coca leaf farmers away from growing coca, the region’s major export crop and the primary ingredient for cocaine.

“The government has begun to realize its potential as a substitute crop, and we hope that translates into attention to the local road system and transportation centers,” said Jose Ordonez, assistant to San Juan’s general manager.

The company shipped the first 10 tons of camu-camu pulp to Japan in January and since then, requests for samples have been rolling in, Ordonez said. U.S. companies are interested in camu-camu, particularly as a powder.

San Juan is based in Pucallpa, in the Upper Huallaga Valley, about 60 miles from Peru’s border with Brazil. It expects to produce about 300 tons a year of camu-camu until 2000, when production should rise to between 400 and 500 tons. And the day is not far off when the 1,000 hectares now cultivated expand to 50,000, Ordonez said.

Each 100 grams of camu-camu pulp contains 2,700 milligrams of vitamin C, whereas the same amount of orange pulp contains a meager 92 milligrams.

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“Camu-camu is a natural for markets where interest in health is high,” Ordonez said. “It’s a totally organic product, harvested without having been subjected to chemical fertilizers or pesticides.” In Japan, the product is marketed to the young and the elderly, he said.

San Juan declined to say what it’s charging for camu-camu because local competition is growing among “informal” harvesters, who simply comb the river banks where the native plant grows.

“They want to sell the fruit at our price, but ours includes R & D costs and quality control,” a Backus official said. The company said it provides price information only to potential buyers.

Backus’ camu-camu project is part of a program it began 20 years ago to research and develop the commercial potential for native jungle species. Backus is also working with hearts of palm, cashew nuts, copuazu or white cacao, pineapple and mango.

Camu-camu, or “myruciaria dubia,” is found only in Peru, where it grows wild along the banks of certain rivers that feed into the Amazon. The 7-meter-high shrubs produce a reddish fruit the size of a small apple. When diluted with water, the pulp gives a rose-colored juice, which is also high in vitamin C.

The company cultivates about 100 hectares of its own camu-camu, mainly as a kind of experimental station, and buys most of its fruit from farmers cultivating another 1,000 hectares. Genetic research will permit clones of wild camu-camu to be grown in higher and drier locations.

San Juan expects to begin exporting hearts of palm the first quarter of 1997, in glass jars and cans. “For the local market, the novelty will be palm hearts in vacuum-sealed bags so they can be eaten fresh,” Ordonez said.

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Peru’s government is looking to agriculture and the country’s incipient agribusiness for the next big development push. With a wide variety of microclimates and a year-round growing season on the coast, Peru holds a number of advantages.

The big drawbacks are deficient infrastructure--poor roads, marine and land terminals and, in some locations, insufficient irrigation. Markets where Peru wants to sell fresh products are demanding better sanitation standards, which the country’s producers cannot always fulfill because of the high incidence of insect infestation.

“There’s tremendous wealth and potential here in the jungle, but the infrastructure is weak,” Ordonez said. “We have the refrigerated trucks needed to move the products, but costs are still high.”

The Backus group owns Cerveceria Backus & Johnston SA, the country’s biggest brewery, and the breweries Compania Nacional de Cerveza SA, or CNC, Cerveceria del Norte SA, Cerveceria San Juan SA, Sociedad Cerveceria de Trujillo SA. Some of its other companies include Jugos del Norte SA, Malteria Lima SA, Compania Manufacturera de Vidrio del Peru Ltda SA and Vidrios Planos del Peru SA.