Acai bros come to Eltham

“We want to be a one-stop health food café and the inter-section between health food stores and restaurants, making unbelievably nutritious, power packed food available to the masses,” Ben Day.

Yesterday, as I set out on my walk back home from the shops - this time along the main road - I turned on to our high street and was confronted with this long queue outside a shop decorated with a huge bunch of silver balloons. The shop itself was packed, and it was a bit of a struggle to walk through the gathering crowd - this was a brief thinning out moment. I was not aware of the shop being there before, so assumed - correctly as it turns out - that this was a Grand Opening - with I now know - a special offer of $10.00 bowls - which are normally $17.60. Well, who knows, they might have been smaller or less loaded with goodies than the usual offering.

Way back in my blog writing history I wrote a piece about Açai berries, having become aware of Açai - most probably through the supermarket magazines. They are, after all, my main channel for finding out current food trends, as I am not a social media user at all. The header quote for this piece was:

"The iPad of berries. You don't actually need it, but if you don't have it you're made to feel like you're missing out." The Guardian

Obviously this mantra still holds, because, it seems that Acai brothers have ridden the wave which is still growing in size. And it's quite a story, although with one tantalising mystery - for me anyway.

The Acai brothers are not brothers at all - at least not in the DNA sense - but two best friends from Sydney - Sam Carson and Ben Day. They have kind of similar backgrounds. It begins with sporting prowess - Sam in sprinting I think and Ben who for a few years was a professional baseball player in Texas. They also both have degrees - Sam in something to do with business, and Ben with sporting efficiency. A Masters degree too. Add to that that both of them became gym owners for a while, before one fatal meeting over a coffee in their Brisbane suburb of Redlands. Because of their sporting background they were both - and still are - into health and wellbeing - and were aware of sporty friends journeying into town to get an açai bowl, or smoothie. And so there and then they decided to go into business together bringing açai to the suburbs - by means of franchises.

They did all the right homework - and doubtless their business training and experience helped enormously, and pretty soon became a runaway success, adding store after store. Their ambition was 100 stores in Australia and then the world - beginning with Asia. I'm not sure how many they achieved - figures vary between 29 and 20, so far, but they are apparently at least in the top three, if not the top superfood franchise in the country. So much so that in November 2024 the company was bought up by Concept Eight - a company that has restaurants, cafés and franchise businesses and presumably the nouse to be able to up the scale of the Acai brothers venture. I don't know what they paid for it.

Why the success? Canny marketing it seems on all the social media platforms, and youthful fun adverts, which included a brief video of the pair stripping off on a beach exposing their bottoms to the world - you can see it here - halfway down the article. Their own personalities have been crucial, as have the franchisees' - chosen for their profile in the communities in which they live.

The range of offerings has expanded as well from the original bowls and healthy drinks - the Eltham store explains on its Facebook site:

"Acai Bros is a health and wellness food store blending flavour forward indulgence with functional, better-for-you nutrition, because wellness should taste as good as it feels. Acai Bros Eltham offers nutritious acai bowls, frozen yoghurt bowls, functional smoothies, raw treats, melt toasties, barista coffee and a range of chilled drinks."

None of it is cheap, but then acai is not cheap. Still I was marginally horrified to see that a frozen yoghurt would set you back $14.30, a toastie from $16.10 for just ham and cheese, to $18.90 for more elaborate offerings. But then what do I know about the price of such things, because it's not a world I move in - the gym gives me the horrors, and I don't often brunch or meet for coffee and cake. I did notice that their various coffees were $7.00 which is probably about the going rate. It's not an experience for the cash-strapped anyway, although to be fair to them some of their profits go to the Amazon peoples - açai berries come from the Amazon.

Apparently Ben Day left Acai brothers - that's the only statement I can find. I have no idea when or why, other than one interview with the pair revealing that their relationship had, inevitably had its ups and downs. If you work that closely with someone it's bound to happen is it not? Before it was sold to Concept Eight anyway, but one hopes that Ben Day got some of the payout. All I could find about him now on LInkedin, is that he is a Project Manager in the construction business. Which is a bit of a change. Sam Carson remains with the company - now a division of Concept Eight as the General Manager. So there's my little mystery. Why did Ben Day leave? Was there a falling out? Do I care? Not really, but it's sort of interesting in a distant sort of way.

The store in Eltham is located on Main Road - the main road that runs through the town and which was the original shopping precinct of the town. But commerce has now moved behind Main Road around the town square and in proximity to the three large supermarkets. The Main Road precinct has battled somewhat in recent times, with many openings and closures. Some of this may be due to the departure of virtually all of the banks who used to be located there, but mostly I think it is due to the many cafés and boutique shops around the town square space. It will be interesting to see if Acai Bros brings back the Main Road vibe. An opening crowd does not necessarily mean ongoing success.

YEARS GONE BY

September 14

2024 - Burnt lemons

2023 - Sainte Ménéhould

2022 - Nothing

2021 - I'm missing cake - well dessert really

2020 - Missing

2019 - For the Jennys - juniper

2018 - Truite aux amandes

2017 - Sunflowers

2016 - Raddichio