Why unripe jackfruit is sold abroad as 'vegetarian meat'

In Bangladesh the jackfruit is a familiar summer fruit, eaten ripe by the bulb and cooked unripe as a curry. A Jagonews24 feature published on 4 July 2026 reported that the same fruit was being sold canned, frozen or vacuum-packed in many supermarkets in the United States, the United Kingdom, Australia and Europe, where it had become known as "vegetarian meat", a plant-based substitute for meat. Restaurants were using it in burgers, tacos, sandwiches, pizzas and barbecue.

The jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) is Bangladesh's national fruit. The Guardian reported in 2014 that it is the largest known tree-borne fruit: even a small one weighs 5 to 7 kg, and farmers have recorded specimens of more than 45 kg.

According to the Jagonews24 report, the key is the fibrous texture of unripe jackfruit. Hard and dense before cooking, it separates into strands after long boiling or slow cooking, looking and feeling much like pulled chicken or slow-cooked beef. It does not taste of meat, but its own flavour is so mild that it takes on the spices and sauces it is cooked with, so the same fruit can become barbecue, Mexican tacos or an Indian curry.

National Geographic reported in July 2016 that vegans were using the unripe fruit in tacos, enchiladas and pulled "pork" barbecue sandwiches. The Indian cookbook author Julie Sahni described its meaty mouthfeel as providing substantial satiety, and companies such as The Jackfruit Company and Upton's Naturals were already selling precooked packs, plain or spiced. Long before that, in 1987, the botanist Julia Morton wrote in Fruits of Warm Climates that Westerners would find jackfruit most acceptable full-grown but unripe, boiled in lightly salted water and served as a vegetable.

The US Department of Agriculture's FoodData Central lists 100 g of raw jackfruit as providing 95 kcal, 1.72 g of protein, 0.64 g of fat, 1.5 g of dietary fibre, 448 mg of potassium, 13.7 mg of vitamin C and 0.329 mg of vitamin B6, with no cholesterol.

The Jagonews24 report cautioned that jackfruit is not nutritionally equal to meat because it lacks meat's protein, so people on a fully vegetarian diet also need lentils, soya beans, chickpeas, nuts or other protein-rich foods.

Interest in plant-based food was also driven by the environment. The report said studies had generally found that plant foods need less land and water and produce fewer greenhouse gas emissions than livestock. In a 2013 assessment, the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO) estimated livestock emissions at 7.1 gigatonnes of CO2 equivalent a year, 14.5 percent of all human-caused greenhouse gas emissions.

Jackfruit abroad was once found mainly in Asian immigrants' shops, the report said; later many countries were selling canned unripe jackfruit, frozen jackfruit, ready-to-cook pieces and spiced ready meals. Julia Morton recorded that unripe jackfruit had been experimentally canned in brine or with curry and that canned jackfruit kept its quality for 63 weeks at room temperature. The Guardian's 2014 report noted that Sri Lanka and Vietnam had established jackfruit industries making flour, noodles, papad and ice cream, and that canned jackfruit was exported as a vegetable.

According to Jagonews24, a large amount of jackfruit in Bangladesh was being wasted for lack of proper storage and processing, and experts said processing to international standards could open new export opportunities. The products it named for adding value were:

• Frozen jackfruit bulbs
• Pieces of unripe jackfruit and canned products
• Dried jackfruit
• Products made from jackfruit seeds

Nyree Zerega, a plant biology researcher at the Chicago Botanic Garden who has studied jackfruit in Bangladesh, told The Guardian that the seeds, young fruit and mature fruit are all edible, and that many longer-lasting food products can be made from jackfruit.

Photo: Mazhar Zarif / Wikimedia Commons (CC BY-SA 4.0)

Sources: Jagonews24, National Geographic, USDA FoodData Central, Purdue University (Julia Morton, Fruits of Warm Climates), The Guardian, The Daily Star, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO)