After questions about what jackfruit tastes like and where to find our products, we tend to receive this one more often than most: Where does your jackfruit come from? While the answer can be short—our jackfruit comes from India—we’d like to explain a bit more about how, and where, and why, we source our products the way we do.
In general, jackfruit comes from India and other parts of Asia, where it grows on large, prolific, and (in many cases) wild trees. Due to an overabundance of fruit or lack of resources or both, much of this delicious and nutritious food is left unharvested each year. After seeing for herself how much jackfruit was being wasted annually, our founder, Annie, created The Jackfruit Company as a solution.
Jackfruit is truly a sustainable crop. The trees do not require irrigation, and no pesticides or herbicides are used—and, like coffee, jackfruit is a shade crop that can be intergrown with other crops to create a regenerative eco-system. This means that growing jackfruit allows farmers to also grow secondary crops, to increase their revenues and enrich the soil by replacing nutrients. The Jackfruit Company in turn helps these farmers to continually plant more trees in the regions where we harvest.
Since being founded in 2011, The Jackfruit Company remains committed to sustainability and to our community of farmers in India. We’re helping the farmers we work with convert their land into certified organic by managing the paperwork for them, so that they can focus on what they do best: growing and harvesting wild jackfruit that is naturally organic, to support their families and elevate their livelihoods.
Additionally, through our membership with Climate Collaborative around Forests, Food Waste, and Agriculture, we are committed to maximizing the benefits of responsible farming while reducing the detrimental impacts of food waste, packaging, and pollutants on our planet. We are also pursuing B Corps Certification and are committed to releasing our first Sustainability Report this year.
All of this is to say that when you purchase and enjoy The Jackfruit Company products, not only are you doing something good for yourself, but you are also doing something good for Mother Earth.
From the entire Jackfruit team, Happy Earth Day.
