What Is Acacia Fibre?

Acacia fibre, also called gum arabic, is dried sap harvested from the trunk and branches of specific Acacia tree species, mainly grown in sub-Saharan Africa. Despite the name overlap with Australian wattles, which also belong to the Acacia genus, the species used commercially for gum arabic are different ones, native to Africa.

What It Is and Where It Comes From

Gum arabic is harvested as hardened sap exuded from Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal trees, mainly grown across Sudan and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The sap is collected, dried and processed into a powder. It's structurally a complex branched polysaccharide, with a high proportion of its dry weight counting as dietary fibre under standard analytical methods.

Not the Same as Australian Wattle

The Acacia genus includes well over a thousand species worldwide, and Australian wattles make up a large share of them. The gum arabic used as a food ingredient comes specifically from Acacia senegal and Acacia seyal, African species harvested for this purpose. An Australian native wattle and the acacia gum on an ingredients label share a genus name, not a specific plant.

How It Behaves in Food and Drink

Acacia fibre dissolves readily in water and has a relatively low viscosity at typical use levels compared with other gums, which is part of why it's used as a stabiliser and emulsifier as well as a fibre source: it can be added without thickening a product noticeably. It's largely flavourless.

How It's Classified as Dietary Fibre

Acacia gum is a naturally occurring plant exudate that meets the general structural and digestion-resistance criteria in the Food Standards Code's dietary fibre definition, in the same way psyllium and PHGG do, without needing a dedicated FSANZ application. It has an established history of use as a food additive (as a stabiliser and emulsifier) well before its fibre content became a separate point of interest.

A Note on Labelling

On an Australian ingredients list, this fibre might appear as "acacia gum," "gum arabic," "acacia fibre," or by its additive code. All generally refer to the same gum, from the same African Acacia species, regardless of which of these terms a specific brand uses.