Say ALOHA to Ponova™ Oil: The Future of Regenerative Farming

By: Kara Fujita, Brand Marketing Manager, Terviva

What if I told you regenerative farming of a supertree used for thousands of years in Ayurvedic medicine could help reduce the world’s largest drivers of deforestation? What if it could help to revitalize the land, improve farmer livelihood, and provide delicious food?  

You’d want to try it, right?  

From Supertree to Superfood 

Say ALOHA to Ponova™ oil, a deforestation-free alternative to palm oil and soy featured in ALOHA's new Kona Bar. Delicious and highly sustainable, this new-to-the-world ingredient is made from the legumes of the pongamia tree.

Ponova™ Oil: Regenerative Farming for Land and Community 

Historically used for reforestation in Asia, pongamia requires minimal water to grow and is naturally pest resistant. In fact, the Ponova™ oil in ALOHA’s Kona bar comes from the North Shore of O’ahu where pongamia trees are watered through collected rainwater, requiring little irrigation and no pesticides.

The beans are then hand-harvested and dried in the sun in a process that includes the use of solar-powered tools. It’s just one location where Terviva, a food and agriculture company dedicated to regenerative farming grows and harvests pongamia. 

From tree to plate, Terviva has created an equitable and transparent supply chain where it’s directly involved in every step of the harvesting and production process.

In India, Terviva is establishing the TKS program (Terviva Karanja Sakhis) to uplift and prioritize women as leaders in its wild harvesting and collecting communities.

In Florida, the company partners with growers who are using pongamia as an alternative crop to citrus which has been severely impacted over the last 15 years by climate change and disease. 

From a single pongamia tree, which yields more beans per acre than soy, Terviva has discovered a simple way to transform its beans into an abundant and sustainable food source that benefits the lands and communities which grow it.   

What is Ponova™ Oil?  

Ponova™ oil is expeller pressed and lightly refined. Containing Omega-9’s, it’s a lightly flavored oil that’s comparable to olive oil, with a buttery mouthfeel that chefs love.    

Its golden color, slow melting curve and high smoke point improve a variety of products ranging from butters to burgers. In dairy and plant-based products, Ponova™ oil brings a full-bodied texture and mouthfeel. 

Planet Positive: The Future is Plant-Based  

With Ponova™ protein and flour on the horizon, Terviva is focused on more than what they are doing but on how they are doing it. As Terviva’s CEO Naveen Sikka puts it, “If we live in better balance with nature, together this planet will thrive.”  

In the past few years, more than ever people understand the interconnected relationship we have with the earth, and with each other. They want to know where their food comes from, who produced it, and how they did it.  

So, while Terviva’s mission is to plant millions of trees to feed billions of people, what they’re really working on is changing the way we grow and produce our food. By using underdeveloped land and avoiding deforestation, they create space to revitalize the land so biodiversity can thrive. And through regenerative farming, they support an equitable and transparent supply chain empowering local and rural communities.  

Ultimately, it's this kind of local impact that can drive global change. And, when it comes packaged as a delicious new ingredient in ALOHA’s Kona Bar, which supports Hawaiʻi farmers and the next generation of environmental stewards, that impact multiplies. What began as a humble little bean from a unfamiliar tree reverberates big change, one delicious bite at a time.