At the foot of the northern slopes of the central part of the Ivanščica mountain is the picturesque town of Ivanec (Varaždin County), where in the spring of 2013 we cultivated neglected land and erected a perennial plantation of 800 chokeberry seedlings adapted for hand picking chokeberry.
The reason for growing this berry is the richness of nutritional values contained in the small, black miracle berry, which we also call “superfruit”, given the many health benefits it provides by consuming fresh fruits and various processed chokeberry products. Another important reason that was crucial for the decision to grow chokeberry plantations is growing healthy fruit in an ecological environment without the use of pesticides and other chemicals, which fortunately this plantation does not require, but requires a lot of physical manual labor when maintaining plantations and harvesting chokeberry fruits.
We pick the chokeberry fruits at the end of August by hand, which results in the high quality of products obtained by processing the chokeberry fruits.
VISION TO TRANSFER THE WEALTH CONTAINED IN THE FRUITS OF ARONIJA INTO THE OFFER OF VARIOUS AND QUALITY PRODUCTS IN WHICH LOVERS OF THIS FRUIT WILL ENJOY, AS WELL AS THOSE WHO TAKE IT FOR THE FIRST TIME.
Nutritional properties
Aronia is an extremely useful and medicinal plant that is rich in very valuable nutritional properties.
Chokeberry fruits contain a large amount of polyphenolic compounds, among which the most common are proanthocyanidins, anthocyanins and flavonols. Chokeberry fruits are also an excellent source of vitamins and minerals. Among vitamins, the most represented are B vitamins, mostly niacin and pantothenic acid, followed by vitamins C, A and E. Of the minerals, chokeberry is rich in iron, calcium, potassium, zinc, manganese and iodine. Compared to other berries, it contains a higher concentration of beta carotene and beta cryptoxanthin.
Aronia is one of the strongest antioxidants. According to the ORAC unit of measure for antioxidant capacity, 100 g of chokeberry fruit contains 16100 ORAC units, and the recommended daily dose is 3000-5000 ORAC units, which is several times stronger antioxidant activity than most fruits and nuts (blueberry 6,552 ORAC, black currant 7,957 ORAC, cranberry 9,090 ORAC.
