The Berry Brothers make their mark on Newcastle's Darby Street with maqui

He and brother Nathan opened WIA Store on Darby Street in 2016 as a "hole in the wall" coffee shop where they sold their own branded apparel. It wasn't long before their shared interest in healthy takeaway options prompted the pair to adjust their business model from retail to food development.

Jacob discovered acai "before it went off the charts and every cafe started using it" while living in Brisbane and playing for Brisbane Roar in the A-League. Having studied nutrition and dietetics for three years and "always researching what the next big thing is" in the world of superfoods, he stumbled across maqui berries from Chile's Patagonia region.

"Maqui (mah-kee) was an untapped market," he said. "I imported some samples and found a niche product that we could develop."

WIA Store has just been rebranded to The Berry Brothers. Under that name the Peppers have introduced a maqui berry-formulated soft and scoopable smoothie bowl to the Australian market and called it Mapuche Maqui.

"We have the distribution rights for the maqui, so we import the 100 per cent fruit concentrate and then turn it into the soft serve and the scoopable mix," Jacob said.

"Maqui has more antioxidants than acai and we expect the market for it to double by 2026."

The mix is made up of maqui berry concentrate, tapioca syrup solids, water, coconut milk, native starch, rice syrup solids, coconut sugar and vegetable fibre. It's a clean, vegan and dairy-free product that is normally consumed as a smoothie bowl but can also be used as a "topper". On the Mapuche Maqui website maqui is said to have "cardiovascular health benefits, decreases lung inflammation, has anti-diabetic effects and anti-viral effects".

The new branding is, Jacob says, already helping to get their message across.

"People know what we're about now, they know it's a healthy product, and a lot of cafes want to bring it on board because it is something different to the acai smoothie."

The Pepper brothers are also developing a sparkling botanical using elderberry, maqui berry and 100 per cent strawberry which is "about two or three months away".

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