Coconut Water

Product of the Year is always a hard choice – in any given year we’re comparing the merits of, say, a major new energy drink or tea introduction by a large company with an intriguing suite of functional products by a newer company that has lots of potential. There’s always a fair bit of debate about whether a product’s sales should be the most heavily weighted factor or whether its innovative qualities deserve the most attention.

This year, the product itself is an easy choice, but it’s a product whose functional benefits, innovative and environmentally beneficial packaging, execution, growth, and even attractiveness to investors have actually been comparably divided between fast-emerging brands.

The fact is that the most exciting product we’ve seen this year, the one that has the strongest track record in terms of evolving into a new category, is coconut water. And it’s the long-friendly competition between the three most important companies selling this product – O.N.E., Vita Coco, and ZICO – that has helped push it to the point where we are recognizing it with this award, which they will share.

Thanks to the hard work of the marketers at O.N.E., VitaCoco, and ZICO, 2009 was a breakout year for the coconut water category. In fact, the beverage industry hasn’t had this much buzz over a single-ingredient product since the heyday of bottled water. With its blend of electrolytes, slightly exotic flavor, and low calorie profile, coconut water is gaining momentum as consumers continue to seek food and beverage products to fit with the increasingly popular health and wellness movement.

While coconut water itself isn’t a new thing (it has even been imported into the US as an ethnic product for many years), these three companies are responsible for taking it to the masses, with new approaches to packaging, branding, and marketing making it the drink of choice for yoga practitioners, environmentally conscious urbanites and hard-core athletes alike. And these are three really solid brands that, despite their different consumer bases, investors, and marketing approaches, have each done a phenomenal job of building the category.

Now, about those differences, which we believe may indeed become more sharp-elbowed in the future. This isn’t a mutual aid society, it’s a business. We all know that. Business competition is always going to wear at what has been, up until recently, a pretty friendly playing environment. But that’s the reason that right now, today, we need to recognize that this past year has been an extraordinary one in which, through the simultaneous effort of three small but equally hard-working companies, a new beverage category has been propelled forward into the American consciousness and onto retailers’ hot lists. ZICO, O.N.E. and Vita Coco have, separately and together, turned Coconut Water into what is, in the end, an easy choice for our product of the year.