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Entrepreneurs, researchers, farmers, chefs, and marketing executives are quickly realizing the vast potential of breadfruit for value-added products. Value-added products are ones produced in a way that enhances a product’s value and changes its physical state or form, such as making apples into sauce or grapes into wine. The explosive popularity of organic, natural, and gluten-free markets has consumers clamoring for foods that are nutritious and delicious—and gluten free. Breadfruit is all these things, naturally.
Breadfruit’s shorter shelf life has posed a challenge in the past to keep fresh fruit stocked in the produce section of stores not located in tropical regions where breadfruit grows. However, making breadfruit into value-added products can diminish this dilemma. Drying and grinding the mature, starchy fruit into flour has opened up a whole new market for products such as bread, cakes, chips, cookies, and so much more. Delicious hummus, doughs, tortillas, pies and other desserts can be made from the fruit and sold to consumers worldwide.
Since large numbers of micropropagated breadfruit trees have become available to purchase, commercial orchards have been planted throughout the tropics for food security and economic opportunity. As more sources of fruit develop, the prospects of getting breadfruit products into the hands of consumers increases as well. With greater resources and improvements in food technology, the possibilities for new, natural, value-added breadfruit products are endless.
