Acerola cherry is naturally rich in vitamin C, which is exactly why the way it is turned from fresh fruit into powder matters so much.
Pick up two bags of acerola powder and they might look fairly similar, but the process behind them can be very different. Two of the most common methods are freeze-drying and spray-drying, and while both remove moisture to create a shelf-stable powder, they do it in very different ways.
At Spring Blossom Superfoods, we choose freeze-drying for our Organic Acerola Cherry Powder. It is a far more expensive process, but when you are working with a fruit valued for its naturally occurring, heat-sensitive vitamin C, we believe protecting that nutritional quality is worth the extra cost.
What is freeze-drying?
Freeze-drying, also known as lyophilisation, is a gentle dehydration process designed to remove moisture without exposing the fruit to the high temperatures associated with many conventional drying methods.
In simple terms:
- The acerola fruit is frozen at very low temperatures.
- Under a vacuum, the frozen water is removed through a process called sublimation, where ice changes directly into vapour.
- What remains is a dry product that can be turned into powder while retaining much of the fruit's original nutritional profile.
This is particularly important for acerola because vitamin C is sensitive to heat and oxidation.
Research comparing different drying techniques on acerola-containing fruit pulp found that freeze-drying retained 93.65% of its ascorbic acid, alongside higher retention of carotenoids and phenolic compounds than spray-drying in that study.
So, what is spray-drying?
Spray-drying takes a very different approach.
The fruit is turned into a liquid or concentrated mixture before being sprayed as tiny droplets into a chamber containing very hot air. The moisture evaporates rapidly, leaving behind a fine powder.
It is quick, efficient and particularly well suited to large-scale production, which helps explain why it is widely used commercially.
Acerola can be challenging to spray-dry on its own, so carrier ingredients such as maltodextrin or gum arabic may be used during processing. Recent research into spray-dried green acerola, for example, tested maltodextrin concentrations alongside drying temperatures ranging from 110°C to 180°C.
Spray-drying can produce a stable acerola powder and, when the process is carefully optimised, can retain substantial amounts of its beneficial compounds. However, the combination of heat and oxygen creates more opportunity for heat-sensitive nutrients such as vitamin C to degrade.
Why do we choose freeze-drying?
For Spring Blossom Superfoods, it comes down to what we want from the finished product.
We're not simply trying to turn acerola into a powder as quickly or cheaply as possible. We want to preserve as much of what makes the fruit special in the first place.
Research comparing drying techniques supports this approach. In one study, acerola-containing pulp retained:
Vitamin C
- Freeze-dried: 93.65%
- Spray-dried: 76.86%
Phenolic compounds
- Freeze-dried: 66.90%
- Spray-dried: 48.13%
Freeze-drying is also well established as a method for preserving heat-sensitive bioactive compounds because the product is dehydrated at low temperatures.
The trade-off is cost. Freeze-drying requires specialist equipment, a vacuum environment and considerably more time and energy than faster industrial drying methods. This makes freeze-dried acerola more expensive to produce and procure.
For us, that's a compromise worth making.
What makes Spring Blossom Acerola Cherry Powder different?
Our Organic Acerola Cherry Powder starts with acerola cherries sourced from Brazil. The fruit is harvested during the early stages of its growing cycle, when its nutrient content is at its highest, before being pressed into pulp and freeze-dried at very low temperatures.
The finished powder contains around 13g of naturally occurring vitamin C per 100g and is:
- 100% organic
- Freeze-dried
- Free of any additives
- Vegan and vegetarian friendly
- Non-GMO
- Gluten-free
The suggested daily serving is just 2.5g (½ teaspoon), making it easy to add to yoghurt, smoothies, porridge, cereal, juice or water.
Don't just check the ingredient; check how it was made!
When you're comparing acerola powders, price shouldn't be the only thing you look at.
Check the drying method too.
A cheaper spray-dried powder may have been quicker and less expensive to manufacture. Freeze-drying requires a greater investment, but its low-temperature process is particularly suited to protecting the heat-sensitive nutrients acerola is prized for.
That's why Spring Blossom Superfoods chooses the more expensive route.
If you're buying acerola because you want a naturally rich source of vitamin C, it makes sense to choose a powder produced with preserving that vitamin C in mind.
Spring Blossom Organic Acerola Cherry Powder is freeze-dried because when the quality of the fruit matters, so does what happens to it next.