ABOUT US
EXTRAORDINARY INGREDIENTS CREATE EXTRAORDINARY FOOD
Some brands start with a recipe. We start with an ingredient.
For more than 20 years, Big Tree Farms has partnered directly with farming communities across Indonesia to bring the world one of nature's most remarkable ingredients: coconut blossom nectar.
Known locally as Nira or Neera, this naturally sweet nectar is the foundation of everything we make—from Coconut Sugar and Coconut Aminos to Marinades, Sauces, and the ingredients trusted by some of the world's leading food brands.
WHY FOCUS ON A SINGLE INGREDIENT?
Because we believe the quality of the finished product can never exceed the quality of what goes into it.
That's why we've spent decades learning, sourcing, and innovating around coconut blossom nectar—working directly with the people who harvest it and staying connected to every step of the journey from tree to table.
The result isn't just better ingredients. It's better food.
The kind of flavor people ask about. The recipe friends request. The bottle that never quite makes it back into the pantry. The sugar that stays out on the counter.
BECAUSE EXTRAORDINARY INGREDIENTS CREATE EXTRAORDINARY FOOD.
THE THREE PILLARS
1. DIRECT FARMER PARTNERSHIPS
Built Together Over Generations
Long before coconut blossom nectar became an ingredient found on store shelves around the world, it was being harvested by farming families across Indonesia using techniques passed down through generations.
For more than 20 years, we've worked alongside those communities to help preserve and strengthen that tradition while creating new opportunities for the people who practice it.
Today, our network includes more than 20,000 farmers across Indonesia—nearly half of them women—who harvest the coconut blossom nectar that becomes the foundation of everything we make.
But partnership means more than purchasing ingredients.
Together, we've combined traditional harvesting expertise with modern traceability systems, quality standards, and market access. Every batch of product can be traced back to the farming communities who produced it, creating transparency and accountability throughout the supply chain.
As a Fair for Life certified company, we're committed to ensuring farmers share in the value they help create through fair pricing, long-term relationships, and investments that strengthen farming communities for the future.
Why It Matters
Great ingredients begin with the people who produce them.
When farmers have the resources, stability, and support to focus on their craft, the result is better harvests, better ingredients, and ultimately better food.
That's the power of a true partnership.
2. FOOD FORESTS
Nature's Original Pantry
If you've ever grown tomatoes, herbs, and vegetables together in a backyard garden, you already understand the basic idea behind a food forest.
Now imagine that garden stretched across a tropical landscape and layered with coconut palms, bananas, jackfruit, coffee, cacao, turmeric, ginger, cloves, and countless other edible plants growing together.
That's a food forest.
Unlike conventional agriculture, which often focuses on a single crop, Indonesian food forests are diverse living ecosystems that provide families with a wide range of foods and income sources throughout the year.
At the center of many of these forests stands the coconut palm.
Twice each day, farmers climb high into the canopy to harvest the sweet coconut blossom nectar that becomes the foundation of our Coconut Sugars, Coconut Aminos, and Coconut Nectar. Below them, coffee ripens, bananas flourish, turmeric spreads beneath the trees, and jackfruit hangs heavy from the branches.
It's agriculture, but it often feels more like nature.
Many of these forests are sustained primarily by seasonal rainfall rather than extensive irrigation systems. Fallen coconuts take root where they land, sprouting into the next generation of palms. Plants shade one another, enrich the soil, and create habitat for birds, insects, and wildlife.
For farming families, that diversity creates resilience If one crop has a difficult season, others continue to provide food and income. Coconut blossom nectar may be harvested every day, while coffee, fruit, spices, and other crops provide additional opportunities throughout the year.
Why It Matters
Healthy ecosystems create resilient farms. Resilient farms create exceptional ingredients. And exceptional ingredients create extraordinary food.
The food forests of Indonesia are more than beautiful landscapes. They are living pantries, economic lifelines, and a reminder that some of nature's best ideas don't need reinventing.
3. INDONESIAN FOOD CULTURE
Where Flavor Comes From
Some places are known for their ingredients. Indonesia is known for what people do with them.
Stretching across more than 17,000 islands, Indonesia is home to one of the world's richest and most diverse food cultures. For generations, cooks have balanced sweet, salty, sour, spicy, and savory flavors with remarkable precision—creating dishes that are vibrant, layered, and deeply satisfying. It's a cuisine built on contrast and harmony.
A little sweetness to tame the heat. A touch of acidity to brighten richness. Savory depth that ties everything together.
Long before terms like "umami" entered the culinary conversation, Indonesian cooks understood how to create balance on a plate. At the heart of many of these traditions is Nira, the sweet nectar harvested from coconut blossoms.
For centuries, it has been transformed into sweeteners, seasonings, sauces, and fermented foods that bring complexity and character to everyday meals. It appears in both sweet and savory applications, connecting two worlds that many Western kitchens often keep separate.
That idea—that one ingredient can move effortlessly between sweet and savory—continues to inspire everything we make today.
More Than Recipes
Food in Indonesia is about community. Meals are shared. Ingredients are celebrated. Culinary knowledge is passed from one generation to the next.
The same farming families who harvest coconut blossom nectar today are often continuing traditions that stretch back generations.
The techniques, flavors, and understanding of ingredients that have shaped Indonesian food culture for centuries remain alive in kitchens and communities across the country.
Why It Matters
Great flavor rarely happens by accident. It comes from generations of observation, experimentation, and tradition.
The products we create are inspired by that legacy—not by chasing trends, but by learning from a culture that has understood the power of balance, flavor, and remarkable ingredients for hundreds of years.
Every spoonful of Coconut Sugar.
Every splash of Coconut Aminos.
Every drizzle of Bali BBQ.
They're all connected to a place that has been quietly perfecting flavor for generations.
OUR JOURNEY
Big Tree Farms didn't begin with a product.
It began with a question: what would happen if remarkable ingredients, traditional knowledge, and modern food systems worked together instead of separately?
The answer has been more than two decades in the making.
LETTER FROM FOUNDERS BEN & BLAIR RIPPLE
Nearly 30 years ago, we arrived in Bali as adventurous twenty-somethings expecting a short chapter in our lives. Instead, we discovered Nira.
What began as an adventure became a calling. The more we learned about the ingredient, the farmers who harvested it, the forests where it thrived, and the food culture that celebrated it, the more we realized we hadn't stumbled onto a chapter.
We'd found something remarkable.
Fresh from the tree, Nira was light, refreshing, and naturally sweet. Then we watched it slowly transform into a rich golden caramel unlike anything we had tasted before.
As we spent more time in Indonesia, we began to see Nira everywhere—in family kitchens, local markets, traditional recipes, and the daily rhythms of life. The more we learned, the more we realized that Nira was more than an ingredient. It connected farming families to their forests, traditional knowledge to modern kitchens, and flavor to livelihood.
In 2003, we founded Big Tree Farms with a simple goal: to introduce more people to this remarkable ingredient while creating lasting value for the communities who have harvested it for generations.
Nearly three decades later, we're still learning from Nira… and still sharing it
Thank you for being part of the journey.
- BEN & BLAIR
