Food and drink

Jackfruit

A single jackfruit can weigh about 50 kg, making it the largest edible fruit on any tree, and the tree can live about 100 years.

22 facts

At a glance

50 kg

Approximate weight of the largest recorded fruits

8 to 25 metres

Height of the evergreen tree

100 to 500 seeds

Seeds in a single fruit

1.43 million tonnes

India's production in a 2017 source cited by Feedipedia

1782

Year plants reached Jamaica from a captured French ship

Jackfruit is described as the largest edible fruit in the world, and it grows on a tree.
Fruits are about 20 to 90 centimetres long and 15 to 50 centimetres wide.
Most fruits weigh between 4.5 and 20 kilograms, and fruits of about 50 kilograms have been recorded.
Botanically it is a multiple fruit, formed from many flowers, in the Moraceae family.

The edible pulp makes up only about 25 to 40 percent of the fruit's weight.
A single fruit may contain 100 to 500 seeds, each about 2 to 4 centimetres long.
The fruit is mostly water, between 55 and 75 percent.
In 100 grams of ripe fruit, carbohydrate runs from 16.0 to 25.4 grams and protein from 1.2 to 1.9 grams.
The seeds are eaten boiled, roasted or canned, and roasted dried seeds can be ground into flour.

The tree is an evergreen that grows 8 to 25 metres tall.
It grows up to 1.5 metres a year in its early years, slowing to about 0.5 metres a year at maturity.
A mature tree yields 10 to 200 fruits.
Trees can live about 100 years, though their productivity declines with age.
It grows from sea level to about 1,600 metres, between roughly 30 degrees north and 30 degrees south, with annual rainfall of 1,000 to 2,400 millimetres.

The jackfruit most likely originated in the rain forests of the Western Ghats in south-western India, though some authors suggest Malaysia and the exact origin is not settled.
It has been eaten in Sri Lanka since ancient times and is called poorman's food.
In 1782, plants taken from a captured French ship bound for Martinique were carried to Jamaica, where the tree is now common.
It reached northern Brazil in the middle of the 19th century and Florida about a hundred years after the Jamaica introduction.

A 2017 compilation by Sawe, cited by Feedipedia, lists India (1.43 million tonnes), Bangladesh (920,000 tonnes), Thailand (392,000 tonnes), Indonesia (340,000 tonnes) and Nepal (19,000 tonnes).
Jackfruit is Bangladesh's national fruit, where it is known as kanthal.
Bangladeshi trees are mostly not grown commercially, because fruit quality varies widely and the harvest is short, from June to August.
In 2014 the Bangladesh Agricultural Research Institute released BARI Kanthal-3, a variety that fruits year-round.