This Brazilian Startup Is Taking on Amazon Deforestation with Nut Milk

Tackling monoculture and deforestation in the Amazon, Cuíca is using Brazilian chestnuts to make a plant-based milk that spotlights Indigenous communities.

Based in São Paulo, food tech startup Cuíca has introduced a whole chestnut milk that puts the Amazon rainforest and its communities at the heart of its existence.

The Amazon, one of the world’s most heavily deforested areas, is quickly approaching a tipping point – research suggests that up to half of the biome could pass that threshold by 2050, thanks to excessive water distress, land clearance and climate disruption.

In its bid to preserve the rainforest and reduce cattle farming, the main cause of deforestation, Cuíca is betting on what has been termed a “saviour seed” for the Amazon. Commonly known as the Brazil nut, the tree is amongst the most powerful species in the forest, and channels more than 260 gallons of water into the air daily.

While it is a vital source of income for Indigenous communities, rampant deforestation has led the International Union for the Conservation of Nature to classify the tree as a vulnerable species.

Cuíca says its Brazil nuts cone from extractive culture, which means there’s no tree-felling, soil destruction, burning, or other forms of exploitation. This also allows an equitable and supportive distribution of income for people who live off the forest.

Having launched in 2024 and unveiled the milk alternative at Expo West in California this March, the company has now commercialised the product in Brazilian stores through a partnership with Tetra Pak.

Cuíca aim to preserve the Amazon and its communities

The Amazon rainforest is home to half of the world’s tropical forests and over three million species of plants and animals. However, continued deforestation – both legal and illegal – has put 10-47% of its forests at risk of collapse by 2050. The Brazilian part of the Amazon accounts for the majority of the rainforest’s deforestation, as well as 40% of global tropical deforestation.

Once known as the “lungs of the Earth”, it lost 13% of its first cover between 1985 and 2023, mainly for mining and farming. That is equivalent to an area the size of Germany and France combined, and has converted the rainforest from a carbon sink to a carbon source.

According to Cuíca, large-scale monoculture and a lack of oversight are among the primary causes of this deforestation. The trees it sources its chestnuts from are centuries old and grown without monocultures.

More than 90% of the nut is produced via extractivism, a practice rooted in local communities – essentially, they’re collected from wild trees instead of being cultivated on farms and using up more land. Indigenous people manually pick the fruits from the ground in the summer months, breaking them into seeds that are transported to a warehouse for further distribution.

Cuíca purchases its raw materials from these local communities and cooperatives, ensuring that producers use practices that respect the environment and follow the Sustainable Development Goals.

“The collection and processing are carried out by indigenous and riverside communities, and in this way, Cuíca helps to keep the forest standing,” said Bianca Oglouyan, who co-founded the startup wth Critina Frange.

Tetra Pak helps keep labels clean

Cuíca’s link-up with Tetra Pak was crucial for market entry. The Swedish packaging giant provided the structure of its pilot plant at its Customer Innovation Center in São Paulo to help the startup test its product formulation before its retail rollout. It also helped Cuíca find co-packers for the nut milk.

“Tetra Pak was super important throughout the development, from the test we carried out at the pilot plant to choosing the most suitable packaging for our product based on its characteristics,” explained Oglouyan.

“In addition to all the infrastructure that made it possible to bring the product to life, the partnership with Tetra Pak offers us something very important: packaging that does not require the use of preservatives, since its technology allows us to have a clean-label product, with only four ingredients, something that is in line with our strategy of having a sustainable product,” she added.

The original version of the milk contains just chestnuts, water, sugar, and salt, with Cuíca also offering a barista edition. It has 1.6g of protein per 100ml, with 4.6g of fat from the nuts, and is rich in selenium, potassium, magnesium and vitamin E.

Oglouyan hinted at the company’s international ambitions. “The one-year shelf life provided by the box is a great advantage, since our focus is export,” she said.

“This project with Cuíca is one of many examples of how we support the industry in its challenges not only through our packaging, which eliminates the use of preservatives and protects food for safe consumption,” said Tetra Pak, sales and business development director at Tetra Pak Brazil.

“We also add value in other areas – from infrastructure for product formulation and testing, [and] market analysis, to processing equipment and technical services.”

Research shows that by 2023, only 43% of Brazilians had tried a plant-based milk product, but 95% were willing to give it a go. And among those who had never tasted one, the most preferred base ingredient was the Brazil nut (90%). Meanwhile, sales of plant-based milk grew by 10% in 2023, reaching R$673M ($135M), outlining locals’ interest in the category.

Can Cuíca meet this demand?