By Dan Mitchell, MLM Blog Correspondent
From Radio Australia:
Producers of Tahitian noni fruit have raised concerns about a fall in demand for their produce. Although Tahiti has a reputation as producing the Pacific region's best, most nutritious noni fruit – high labour and production costs mean it's also far more expensive than that of its neighbours. Now the producers are claiming that noni from other countries such Fiji, Vanuatu and the Cook Islands is being used in juice carrying the Tahitian label.
Noni juice is said to benefit everything from your digestion system, immune system and even skin and hair. And while those claims are often disputed, no one can argue with the fact that in the last decade noni-juice has become a multi-million dollar industry. Worldwide sales of noni juice reportedly add up to several billion US dollars a year.
At the forefront of this success is the French Polynesian island of Tahiti, the first of the Pacific Islands to tap into the international market. However, with demand for local noni fruit falling, producers suspect that many companies maybe be using cheaper fruit imported from other Pacific Islands.
The CEO of the noni producer and exporter, Royal Tahiti Noni, Vatea Quesnot, says he saw this happen several years ago with juice sold in the United States and thinks it may now be happening on the Asian market.
