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March 17, 2025
WEST CENTRAL WISCONSIN – A “simple superfood” truck is bringing tropical tastes to events and markets across the Chippewa Valley.
Brittany Peterson – founder and owner of Up North Açai – said her time as a traveling nurse inspired her to start her business.
“I did travel nursing for probably eight years,” she said. “I lived in Hawaii for a brief stint of time, and my husband actually traveled for work, too.”
Peterson said Açai bowls – smoothie-like dishes made with blended açai berries often topped with various fruit, granola and sauces – are “pretty big” in Hawaii, as well as in Brazil, where they would travel for work.
“I had never had anything like that before,” she said.
Peterson said she would seek out açai bowls when she traveled, “because where I’m from, it’s not a very common food to get.”
When the couple moved back to Wisconsin in 2019, Peterson said she realized quickly that there wasn’t really anywhere she could get açai bowls in the area – especially in Chippewa Falls.
“I joked (with my husband) that we should open up an açai shop,” she said.
That joke, funny enough, eventually became reality by way of a food truck, Peterson said.
“The thought just came to me, and I was like, ‘We should just do a food truck and see how it goes, and just sell açai bowls,’” she said. “At (that) point, we had been making them at our house for ourselves.”
Peterson said following the birth of her two kids, she especially recognized the need for healthier options at events that often feature food trucks.
“I just feel like there’s a need for healthy food, especially after having kids,” she said. “You go to any place with food trucks and a lot of them (serve) fried food or hamburgers. Now, there’s a lot more variety, but at the time, you really couldn’t get a healthy, no-sugar-added (snack). Something that you could feel good about feeding your kids.”
And so, in August 2024, Up North Açai was born.
Custom-made options
Up North Açai’s bowls, Peterson said, feature a multitude of locally sourced toppings to be enjoyed with their standard açai base.
“We use a dairy-free, no-added-sugar açai base, and then every bowl is a la carte customizable,” she said. “Depending on the size of the bowl, you get (up to) five toppings you can add.”
Peterson said topping options available at Up North Açai include numerous fresh fruits, granola and various sauces – like honey or caramel – to drizzle on top.
“You pretty much custom-make every bowl,” she said. “This year, we’re actually going to do a bowl of the month because a lot of people have never heard of açai. So a lot of people would (ask), ‘What do you recommend?’ So, I think having a starting point (of sorts) for people who are new to the food is going to be helpful.”
Peterson said customers can select between two bowl sizes.
“We have a mini, which is an eight-ounce bowl, and then we have a regular size, which is the 16-ounce,” she said. “(For) the mini bowl, you can add up to three toppings, and then the regular, you can add up to five.”
If a customer would like toppings beyond the standard amount, Peterson said it costs $1 per additional topping.
One thing she said she is proud of regarding Up North Açai’s standard base is that every bowl is blended to order.
“A lot of places do scoopable (bases), and people don’t realize the amount of added sugar that those scoopable sorbets have – like, one serving could (have) up to seven to eight teaspoons of sugar,” she said. “So people get this false sense of, ‘I’m eating healthy,’ but you might as well have ice cream at that point.”
Up North Açai’s bowls, Peterson said, are made to taste good while making the customer feel good about what they and their family are eating.
“We have made food that tastes really good, there’s no added artificial sweetener – or any sweeteners – there’s no sugar added,” she said.
Peterson said the truck is out and about from the spring to the fall – though the length of Up North Açai’s season depends on the weather.
“Last year, we probably shut down earlier than (we could’ve),” she said. “It’s so hard because Wisconsin weather is so unpredictable. It was, like, 70 degrees at the end of October. We were like, ‘we could have been out at this point,’ but it was okay.”
Peterson also said the number of events she attends every week will depend on her and her husband’s work schedules.
“We don’t really have employees or anything, so we have to make the schedule work for us,” she said.
Last year, between August and mid-October, Peterson said their very first event was the Chippewa Falls YMCA Farmers Market – otherwise known as Monday Market at the Y.
“Neither (my husband) or I have a background in food or hospitality or whatnot,” she said. “So we started small, and then very quickly, other people reached out to us and asked if we could come to their events – that got the ball rolling.”
Events Peterson said she and her husband are looking forward to this coming food truck season are the Eau Claire Marathon, as well as “a lot” of local softball and baseball tournaments “to help promote a healthier option for people to eat.”
Finding a balance
As a labor and delivery nurse at Marshfield Medical Center in Eau Claire, Peterson said she plans to maintain both her full-time job and Up North Açai throughout the months the truck is operational.
“I’ve saved up some PTO so I don’t have to work as much this summer, because I don’t want to be stretched too thin,” she said. “So, I’ll work a few days at the hospital, and then a couple days a week I’ll be doing the food truck, because I run the food truck and then my husband helps.”
Having only operated the food truck for roughly two months, Peterson said the business is still very much “in the baby phase,” but added that in those months, Up North Açai “took off” pretty quickly.
“So, I think we’ll have to reevaluate what happens this year to see how it goes,” she said. “I love being a nurse, I love my job, but the hours are long. It’s 13-hour shifts… So, if somehow we can finagle it where we could do Up North Açai more full-time – and we still enjoy doing it – I think that would be on the table.”
Peterson said customers enjoyed Up North Açai’s bowls so much that they’ve already been approached about moving into a permanent brick-and-mortar location.
“We’ve done this for two months – I’m still learning the whole (business) side of this,” she said. “But, it would definitely be cool if we could make it work all year round. And we have ideas, but it’s bringing those to fruition and being realistic about everything.”
To keep up to date on which events the Up North Açai truck will be attending, visit its Facebook page.
