These delicious, certified organic golden berries are grown in Peru. Golden berries, also known as Inca berries and cape gooseberries are tangy and sweet dried berries.

These goldenberries are from the Cajamarca department that is about 2400m above sea level, and is located in the northern centre of Peru.

As with most dried fruit golden berries are machine-dried at low temperatures to prevent mould.

The co-op we work with contains 250 farming members that are growing goldenberries of which 20% (50) are women. It also has its own processing plant where it processes (dries) the goldenberries. In the processing plant the % of women workers is 70% (30 women).

The farmers from this co-op have been growing goldenberries since 2009. and Amazon Specialties who we work with directly pay the co-op in advance for their goldenberries.

In general, Peruvian agriculture is almost frozen in time, for many years they farmed the same things. Much of this area was traditionally used to farm potatoes and corn, both of which have very low margins especially now that yellow corn that is farmed in the USA is so massively produced it makes the margin for the Peruvian corn farmer very small.

So alternative crops were introduced. The beauty with goldenberries especially now as they become more popular is that the margins are much better than that of corn and potatoes, so the farmers are seeing better returns on their work and also the return in proportion to the land that this crop occupies in comparison to the other crops.

Goldenberries are very delicate, similar to tomatillos, they are like vines needing supporting sticks, and like tomatillos are also encased in a leaf globe, so it requires a more delicate way of farming, because of this it is more common that a higher percentage of women farm goldenberries which is great because in the Andes women are traditionally expected to be at home, and so the farming, and processing in the plant of goldenberries helps empower the women in this region and gives them a steady income.

Gluten, peanut and soy free.

More about organic here.