The palm Bactris gasipaes also known as pejibaye or peach palm, is native to the tropical forests of South and Central America (Graefe et al., 2013). Bactris produces high fruit yields up to 3.8 t ha-1 yr-1 (Bolanho et al., 2013). The fruits (Figure 1) are rich in starch and contain all essential and non-essential amino acids. One kilogramme of bactris palm fruits contains, on average, 16 – 49 g of lysine, 8 – 13 g of methionine, 10 – 19 g of cysteine, 27 – 39 g of threonine and 4.5 – 7 g of tryptophan (Cabral et al., 2013).

Researcher: Samsul Kamal Rosli
Email: samsul@mpob.gov.my