Vita Coco Coconut Water

Vita Coco Sparkling is a four-SKU line of sparkling beverages that are made with coconut water from concentrate. The product is packaged in a slim 12 oz. can and is available in four flavors: Lemon Ginger, Grapefruit, Pineapple Passionfruit, and Raspberry Lime.

In all four of the products, you’ll find an extremely simple formulation: coconut water, carbonated water, juice, and flavorings. Utilizing the natural sugars of coconut water is both on brand and on trend and this translates quite nicely to the nutrition facts panel (4g of sugars and 25 calories per 12 oz. can).

From a taste perspective, Vita Coco has done a really nice job with these. To date we’ve sampled several brands of sparkling coconut water and Vita Coco Sparkling is, at least for our palates, in a league of its own. The key difference is in how the coconut water is incorporated. In this case, it plays a subtle and balanced role that really works in unison with the other flavors. This is in stark contrast to some of the other products that have gone before it and have featured a much stronger and sometimes off putting coconut water flavor.

Looking at the individual flavors, Grapefruit and Lemon Ginger were our favorites. These two varieties are the most similar to all of the flavored sparkling water brands that utilize citrus flavors. In the case of Vita Coco Sparkling, their point of differentiation comes with the light sweetness and salty flavor from the coconut water. As a result, these two flavors seem like both the best gateway to the brand and the varieties with the greatest potential.

The other two varieties, Pineapple Passionfruit and Raspberry Lime, have slightly more assertive flavors. It’s actually pretty impressive how much flavor these products have given that they have only 25 calories and 4g of sugar. From our perspective, these products are a bit closer to Vita Coco’s flavored coconut waters and will probably appeal more to consumers who are already fans of coconut water.

Packaging is another place where they’ve done some really nice work. The slim 12 oz. can feels like the perfect shape and size for this product. Plus, they’ve made great use of the existing Vita Coco brand equity with a design that’s also clean and attractive to the eye. The arrangement of the front panel makes the product intuitive and, thanks to the use of fruit imagery at the bottom, wholesome looking and appealing to the senses.

Overall, we really like Vita Coco Sparkling. Given the underlying brand proposition of refreshment and hydration, the sparkling category feels like a good place for Vita Coco to expand. And they’ve done a really nice job out of the gate in crafting something that is both well executed and has meaningful differentiation from what’s currently out there.

Vita Coco’s Pressed Coconut variety is a product announced for the 2018 Natural Products Expo West show. Unlike their other offerings, which have, aside from Coco Community, come in the form of flavored coconut water, this product relies exclusively on coconut for its flavor profile.

Pressed Coconut is 100% juice and features coconut water, coconut puree, fruit sugar (less than 1%), and vitamin C. The product drinks more like a juice than their flagship pure coconut water, with a slightly sweeter and more pronounced nuttiness to it. There are also soft bits of coconut in the product, but they are quite small (a fraction of the size of the pulp you’ll find in some coconut water products).

While the flavor is more intense and the body is slightly more viscous, Pressed Coconut is still light and refreshing and there are only 60 calories and 12g of sugar per 8 oz. serving. However, it doesn’t quite feel like something that would function as a sports drink replacement the same way as pure coconut water does.

On the outside, the product is packaged in a 16.9 oz. Tetra Pak carton with a resealable cap. The core of the package looks the same as the rest of the Vita Coco lineup and it features white as its accent color. It’s a tried and true design, so there’s not really much to add when it comes to feedback on that portion.

The same can be said for the messaging, which is pretty matter of fact: the product is coconut water mixed with pressed coconut meat. The product name certainly isn’t fancy, but it works. If there’s any question about this approach, it is whether or not this product will feel sufficiently differentiated from their flagship product.

Also on that note, we wonder who the consumer of this product is. Is it someone who already likes coconut water and is looking for variety? Or is it someone who might not currently be a coconut water consumer? From our perspective, it’s hard to say, but even if it’s only for existing consumers we do think that there’s merit to having something new and that also gives choice to those consumers who like pure coconut water.

All in all, we think that Vita Coco Pressed Coconut is a well-executed addition to their lineup.

Launched at the Natural Products Expo 2017, Vita Coco’s Coconutmilk is the company’s first foray into the rapidly expanding dairy alternative category. With this addition, which comes behind the company’s flagship coconut water, a set of kids beverages, and a more recently introduced coconut oil, Vita Coco is quickly developing into a coconut platform.

For Vita Coco, which was one of the pioneers of coconut water and is still the category leader, the company has a reputation to uphold in any new category. And as a category, coconut milk hasn’t been the most exciting dairy alternative option out there, at least in part due to the category having a plethora of off-tasting and poorly branded products. This product introduction is leaps ahead of just about everything that they compete with.

The product comes in two Non-GMO Verified flavors: Original and Vanilla. The primary ingredients in the product are coconut water and coconut cream, which, when blended together, deliver the base coconut milk flavor (They’ve also added additional vitamins and minerals as well as stabilizers to keep the blend together). And it’s a really great-tasting base, with notes of coconut water and a slightly rich (but definitely not too rich) body from the added coconut cream. We really like that the sweetness from the product comes from the coconut rather than added sugar. Even the vanilla flavor, which can sometimes be overpowering, is spot on.

Visually, this product, which is packaged in a 1.25 L (42.27 oz.) fully wrapped plastic bottle, makes great use of the Vita Coco brand equity. It’s clearly something that is made with coconut, but, thanks to the white background instead of the standard blue, it’s also obvious that it’s something different. Not to mention that the white backdrop subconsciously says “milk” to us.

In the end, the question that looms is whether this product can pull well when it’s on the store shelf. While we’re confident that it will be a hit with those consumers that pick it up, Vita Coco has a challenge ahead of it in terms of building category awareness -- and in some cases undoing the baggage from some of the other stuff that has come before. If they can crack that, we think there’s a really nice opportunity to offer a meaningful alternative to soy or nut-based dairy alternatives.  And they’ve certainly come up with a great product offering to make a solid run at it.