The Amazing Arenga Sugar Palm
Arenga Palm Sugar comes from the Sugar Palm – Arenga Pinnata. This thrives in ecologically diverse forests. In stark contrast to large-scale monoculture crops like palm oil, it is not dependent on forest clearing, nor does it require inputs of pesticides or fertilisers. The Sugar Palm needs intact forest, and provides great environmental benefits such as slope stabilisation, wildlife habitats, flood regulation, and green-house gas capture. With a highly efficient photosynthesis system it rapidly processes sunlight. Solar energy activates the Palm’s deep root system to feed deeply on mineral-rich volcanic soils, converting and conveying multiple nutrients from the soil into large quantities of sweet sap for daily tapping. For this reason the Arenga Sugar Palm has been called …
Traditional Tappers
The productivity from mature Sugar Palms can be remarkably high, and the application of the in-grained knowledge of our tappers enables good yields of superb quality juice. They know precisely how and when to ‘awaken’ and tap the male flower stalks of the Palm to deliver the necessary quantities of juice perfectly suited to achieving our Brix and acidity quality targets. This is brought to a processing unit for cooking in specially designed pans on efficient rocket stoves which use biomass fuel. The damaging smoke inhalation often experienced by tappers during traditional processing is eliminated, and there are lower green-house gas emissions compared to using fossil fuels. These tappers need support so their valuable skills are not lost … and their precious Sugar Palms survive within economically productive forest environments able to resist conversion to monoculture plantations. Working hand-in-hand with local tappers, and connecting them with high-value markets, is our route to achieving economic …
