Fruits Highest in Vitamin C: Kakadu Plum Beats Camu-Camu
Short answer: The highest-vitamin-C fruit on record is the Australian kakadu plum at around 3000 mg per 100 g — ahead of camu-camu (about 2400 mg) and acerola (about 1677 mg), the two usually given the title. Rosehip follows near 1000 mg and amla around 300 mg. Among fruits you can readily buy, guava is outstanding at about 228 mg, with blackcurrant near 181 mg and kiwi about 93 mg — all far above an orange's roughly 53 mg. The chilli pepper slips in at about 243 mg, ahead of guava — though nobody eats it by the 100 g. One guava covers a day's vitamin C several times over. The table below shows each fruit's real figure side by side.
| 🍈 Kakadu plum | 🌶️ Chili pepper | 🍒 Camu camu | 🍒 Acerola | 🌹 Rosehip | 🫒 Amla | 🍏 Guava | 🟣 Blackcurrant | 🥝 Kiwi | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Taste | Tart, green, and astringent — stewed apple and English gooseberry with a piney, herbal edge. More medicine-bright than dessert-sweet; usually met as powder or purée. | Beyond the heat, chillies are genuinely fruity — green ones grassy and sharp, ripe red ones sweeter and almost berry-like, smoked and dried ones deep and raisiny. The burn is a trigeminal sensation, not a taste. | Mouth-gripping sour — rhubarb, sour cherry, and lime peel with a floral Amazon-guava undertone. Sugar or blending is not optional. | Juicy and tart with a mild sweetness and a slight apple note; softer and more acidic than a true cherry. Ripe fruit is delicate and refreshing, best eaten or juiced immediately. | Tangy and lightly fruity, like a mild tart apple with floral notes; the flesh is thin around a core of irritating seeds and hairs that must be removed before eating. | Fiercely sour, bitter, and astringent up front, with a strange sweet aftertaste that lingers once the pucker fades — the famous "five tastes in one bite" of Ayurvedic lore. | Ripe guava is musky, floral, and sweet-tart — somewhere between pear, strawberry, and quince, with gritty-crisp seeds. Underripe it's crunchy and tannic, which half the world prefers: sliced, salted, chili-dipped. | Deeply tart, winey, and musky-aromatic — "catty" to detractors, addictive to fans. Cooking with sugar unlocks a rich, almost grape-meets-blackberry depth unlike anything else. | Sweet-tart and vivid, like strawberry crossed with citrus and melon; the gold variety is sweeter, tropical, and less acidic than the classic green. Underripe fruit is aggressively sour and firm. |
| Type | Stone fruit | Berry | Berry | Berry | Berry | Berry | Tropical & subtropical | Berry | Berry |
| Peak season | Autumn, Winter | Summer, Autumn | Summer | Summer, Autumn | Autumn | Autumn, Winter | Year-round, Autumn | Summer | Winter, Spring, Autumn |
| Origin | Northern Australia (Kakadu, Arnhem Land, the Kimberley) | Central and South America; domesticated in Mexico at least 6,000 years ago | Floodplains of the Peruvian and Brazilian Amazon | Southern Mexico, Central America, and northern South America | Europe, Northwest Africa, and western Asia | The Indian subcontinent and Southeast Asia | Tropical Americas (Mexico through Peru); carried worldwide by Spanish and Portuguese trade | Northern and central Europe and northern Asia | Yangtze Valley, southern China; commercialized in New Zealand in the 20th century |
| Calories (per 100 g) | 59 | 40 | 24 | 32 | 110 | 44 | 68 | 63 | 61 |
| Sugar (per 100 g) | 4 g | 5.1 g | 1.3 g | 4 g | 3 g | 6 g | 8.9 g | 7.4 g | 9 g |
| Vitamin C (per 100 g) | 3000 mg | 242.5 mg | 2400 mg | 1677 mg | 1000 mg | 300 mg | 228.3 mg | 181 mg | 92.7 mg |
| Fiber (per 100 g) | 7 g | 1.5 g | 1.1 g | 1.1 g | 6 g | 4.3 g | 5.4 g | 5.8 g | 3 g |
| Potassium (per 100 g) | — | 340 mg | — | 146 mg | — | — | 417 mg | 322 mg | 312 mg |
| Typical price | Luxury | Budget | Premium | Mid | Budget | Budget | Budget | Mid | Mid |
Oranges get the vitamin-C reputation and don’t come close to the real leaders — and neither, it turns out, does camu-camu, which is usually handed the crown. The table above ranks these fruits by their actual vitamin C in milligrams per 100 g, taken from each fruit’s own nutrition data.
The record belongs to the kakadu plum, a small green-yellow fruit from the savannas of northern Australia, harvested by Aboriginal communities long before anyone measured it. Figures around 3000 mg per 100 g are commonly reported — roughly sixty times an orange. It is worth being honest about the number: published analyses range from about 1000 mg to well over 5000 mg depending on when and where the fruit is picked, so it is a band rather than a fixed figure. Even at the bottom of that range it leads.
Behind it sit the two fruits normally given the title: camu-camu at about 2400 mg and acerola at about 1677 mg, followed by rosehip near 1000 mg and amla, the Indian gooseberry, around 300 mg. All of them are too sour to eat by the handful, which is why you meet them as juice, powder or capsules rather than as fruit.
One entry in the table deserves an asterisk. The chilli pepper measures about 243 mg per 100 g, which puts it ahead of guava and behind only the wild record holders — and vitamin C was in fact first isolated from paprika peppers. But a bird’s-eye chilli weighs two or three grams, so the figure is real and the serving is not. Its milder relative the red bell pepper, at about 128 mg, is the one you can actually eat a whole portion of.
The practical tier is where this gets useful. Guava delivers roughly 228 mg in one fruit — several times an orange — while blackcurrant (about 181 mg) and kiwi (about 93 mg) are easy to find and pleasant to eat. For nearly everyone, a guava or two kiwis settles the day’s vitamin C without any exotic shopping.
For the opposite end of the nutrition scale, see lowest sugar fruits; for a head-to-head on the two famous record holders, camu-camu vs acerola. This is general information, not medical or dietary advice.
Frequently asked questions
What fruit has the most vitamin C?
The kakadu plum (Terminalia ferdinandiana), a small Australian bush fruit, holds the record — commonly measured at around 3000 mg of vitamin C per 100 g, roughly sixty times an orange. Camu-camu, the Amazonian berry usually credited with the title, comes second at about 2400 mg, with acerola third near 1677 mg. Published figures for kakadu plum vary widely with harvest timing and growing conditions, with some analyses reporting anywhere from about 1000 mg to over 5000 mg, so treat the exact number as a range rather than a fixed value.
Which common fruit is highest in vitamin C?
By weight it is the chilli pepper, at roughly 243 mg per 100 g — but nobody eats 100 g of chilli, so the practical answer is guava at about 228 mg. One guava covers an adult's daily requirement several times over. Blackcurrant (about 181 mg) and kiwi (about 93 mg) are the next best widely available options, and red bell pepper is excellent at about 128 mg. The record holders above are eaten almost entirely as juice, powder or supplement rather than as fruit.
Do oranges have the most vitamin C?
No. Oranges are a good source at roughly 53 mg per 100 g, but they are nowhere near the top. Guava, blackcurrant, kiwi and even strawberries beat them, and the tropical and wild record holders beat them by a factor of twenty or more. The orange's reputation is a marketing legacy, not a nutritional ranking.
Is it worth buying camu-camu or kakadu plum powder for vitamin C?
Vitamin C is one of the cheapest and most abundant nutrients in an ordinary diet, and deficiency is rare where fresh produce is available. A guava, a kiwi or a handful of strawberries will meet your needs at a fraction of the cost of an exotic powder. These fruits are genuinely remarkable, but their value is more botanical curiosity than nutritional necessity. This is general information, not medical or dietary advice.