Trad trades gangster life for acai berry business

If a fortune-teller had visited Bill “Underworld” Trad during his years in prison, to tell him that within a year of his release he’d become an açai aficionado and social media star, “I would have said, ‘what a laugh’,” he says. “I’d lived a gangster life my whole life.”

When Trad was granted parole less than two years ago, he had no idea about social media “likes” or “shares”. He’d never heard of an açai berry.

Yet here he is, riding the crest of the açai wave – thanks in part to his wildly popular social media videos featuring his prison chic face tattoo and rolled-up tracksuit pants, in which he spruiks the four Açai Underworld shops he now operates with his nephew.

Bill Trad (right) and his nephew Aaron run Acai Underworld in St Marys. Bill is an ex-con who’s become a TikTok star saying he believes his social media fans are attracted to his authenticity. “My past is my past. I’m not claiming to be anything I’m not.”Credit: Wolter Peeters

The açai dessert craze has exploded over western Sydney like a sweet purple bomb, taking a food trend that began as nourishing breakfast for surfers and turning it into what Trad describes as an “old school” late-night dessert scene.

The berry is Brazilian, but soft serve açai is a Sydney invention. It’s served as a cascading tower in a tub and lathered in toppings. Vendors often operate out of food trucks at service stations, where patrons gather for an alcohol-free evening, often showing off their cars.

“People would bring Lamborghini, Ferraris, V8s [and] it’s family safe,” said Trad.

Competition has become so intense that social media is now abuzz with claims of açai wars, which are hotly denied by proprietors.

Wars or not, it can be a dangerous business. In February, Açai World in Merrylands fell victim to an arson attack, which one of the operators described on social media as a “targeted attack to burn down a business that was doing well,” while also insisting “there’s no such thing as açai wars”.

A week later, another popular açai cafe in Melbourne, the Munch Spot in Dandenong, was firebombed. “This is what happens when people can’t stand to see others succeed,” the shop said on its TikTok page.

Meanwhile, Rockdale’s Açai Vibez, a maker of “dots” or frozen droplets of the açai mixture, claimed on social media it had been reported to the food authority, adding that the authority officers who visited ″⁣said [those who reported it were] probably just hating on you because you’re taking their customers″⁣.

And in November 2023, Jacob Najjar – the pioneer of Sydney’s nighttime açai culture – was allegedly kidnapped for 24 hours before being dumped, injured, 30km away. The case is before the courts so Najjar can’t comment, beyond saying “it had nothing to do with the açai”.

Açai – known for its anti-oxidants, and pronounced a-SAY-ee – has been consumed in the Amazon region of Brazil for thousands of years. Indigenous tribes would grind the hard berries and mix the pulp with water to produce a tart-tasting paste, to eat with meals.

“It’s like bitter chocolate – it’s kind of like dirt,” says Dwayne Martens, owner of Australian açai importer Amazonia. “I love it [raw], but I’m a hardcore açai fanatic.” As refrigeration improved, the paste was trucked to Brazilian cities and mixed with sweet syrups.

In the early 2000s, Brazilian surfer Americo Tognetti was driving around Australia and witnessed the beginning of the juice bar boom. “I said OK, it’s time for açai,” he recalls. It took about 10 years for his importation business, Amazon Power, to take off.

In the mid-2000s açai was considered a health food, most popular around the eastern and northern beaches. “It was açai smoothies and bowls, it was served at cafes and juice bars,” Tognetti said. “It was more like a breakfast, lunch. At 2.30pm, they’d clean everything and shut the doors.”

Bill Trad from Açai Underworld was released from his most recent jail stint in March last year.Credit: Wolter Peeters

It was so popular that cafes, which had to use blenders to mix the smoothies, couldn’t keep up with demand. Thirsty Monkey’s Najjar, a one-time professional fighter and gym owner-turned cafe operator, said it could take 10 minutes to make an açai bowl.

Najjar began working with Tognetti and soft-serve ice-cream machine manufacturers to find a faster way. “Açai is much thicker, much heavier [than soft serve],” Tognetti says. “[The machines] need to have a stronger compressor, they needed to be adjusted for açai, which is less cold.”

When they hit on a solution, it changed the game; açai could be served within seconds, not just in restaurants but at food trucks and service stations, too. “We did something with an açai bowl that no one has ever done,” says Najjar. “No one ever thought to put it through the machine, to make it into that nice creamy texture.”

Najjar served açai with scoops of solid peanut butter until a customer suggested he melt it, which began a topping trend that took açai well outside the health food realm.

Americo Tognetti, who imported Açai into Australia 20 years ago, pictured at Manly’s Ground Zero Cafe, the first Sydney cafe to adopt it.Credit: Nick Moir

“We moved onto melted Nutella, we melted Biscoff, we melted white chocolate … we went places that no-one ever thought were possible,” he says. “We took a … healthy breakfast bowl and we turned it into an all-rounder dessert bowl.”

In March last year, Ibis World reported that Australia’s açai industry turned over $665 million a year, employed 4000 people and made $47.9 million in profit. However, it said, intense competition has constrained revenue growth.

One source, on the condition of anonymity to protect their business, said revenue at some outlets was down 20 to 30 per cent. Yet shops run by the most successful chains – Thirsty Monkey, Açai Underworld – go through a tonne of açai a week, says Tognetti.

“Social media platforms have emerged as a powerful tool in attracting customers,” says the Ibis World report. “Businesses that frequently use social media have reportedly experienced substantially higher sales than those who don’t.”

TikTok and Instagram have powered the açai trend, as shops vie for unique branding angles. One shop posted a video of the most expensive açai – $47, if every single topping is added – and another boasted of the first Dutch pancake-loaded açai.

But few have achieved the popularity of Trad from Açai Underworld, who was released from his most recent jail stint in March last year. He still has a charge before the courts, of contravening an ADVO, which will be heard later this year (he declined to comment on it).

His business leans heavily into his prison past; the logo features a Godfather puppeteer and men in suits with their arms folded.

Trad from Acai Underworld has leaned into his prison past.Credit: Wolter Peeters

His catchphrase is “we’re not here to take part, we’re here to take over”, but he has offered his support to the proprietors of burnt-out Açai World, who said on social media that they had been tilers and concreters for 20-odd years before they opened their shop.

He has served 12 years all up, including a few years in a segregated cell. “All this made me a very unique person,” he told the Herald. “[Fans] love my realness, I’ve come from that past, but I’m a good guy. I’ve done this to change my life for my daughters.”

His hospitality career has inspired his prison mates. Trad told a podcast late last year that “everyone around me has done 20 years, 10 years,” but that a good friend of his found a way to transfer the skills of his old, criminal business into a legitimate kind.

“He goes, ‘Bill, you implement the same things exactly, it’s just that the grind’s harder and it takes a bit longer’. I use that mentality ... it’s a 10 kilo bucket [of açai]; we’re breaking it down into small cups and large cups.

“When I explain it to the boys like that, the penny drops for them.”

He believes his social media fans are attracted to his authenticity. “I’ve been raw from the beginning. My past is my past. I’m not claiming to be anything I’m not.”

Trad is now beginning an Underworld streetwear brand.

In a statement, police said Cumberland Police Area Command were still investigating the Acai World fire.

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