Ucuuba is a common name applied to several species of Virola trees native to the Amazon and Atlantic forests of South America. The name is sometimes used interchangeably with ucuhuba, though it can refer to different species within the same genus. The seeds of these trees yield a hard, tallow-like fat known as ucuuba butter.
The fat has a long history of use among Indigenous peoples of the Amazon for cooking, candle-making, and traditional remedies. In modern commerce, ucuuba butter is used in the cosmetics industry for soaps, balms, and skincare products, and occasionally in food manufacturing as a specialty fat.
Ucuuba products are rarely encountered in Australia. The trees grow only in tropical South American forests, and the fat remains a relatively niche ingredient in global trade, valued for its firm texture and stability.
How it's produced
Ucuuba seeds are harvested from wild trees in tropical rainforests, primarily in Brazil. The fruit is collected after it splits open on the tree or falls to the ground, and the seeds — typically one per fruit — are removed and dried.
The fat is extracted from the dried seeds by mechanical pressing or, traditionally, by boiling the seeds in water and skimming off the fat that rises to the surface. Most production is small-scale and based on wild harvest by forest communities. Some efforts to cultivate ucuuba species in agroforestry systems have been trialled, but wild trees remain the primary source.
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≈ Estimated from its category — typical for vegetable oils, not measured for this item yet. Sources & methods →
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