VitaCoco carves new territory in coconut milk market
VitaCoco is attempting to carve out new territory in the coconut milk market - currently dominated by brands such as Silk and SO Delicious (which use coconut cream and purified water, plus cane sugar) - with a lower-sugar product combining coconut water with coconut cream and a small amount of purified water, with no sugar added.
Prinz Pinakatt, general manager at Vita Coco North America, said the coconut milk - which he claimed worked well in hot beverages as well as with cereal or as a standalone beverage - tasted better than rival products and had a mouthfeel closer to dairy milk in part because of the cococut water.
He added: "Many coconut milk brands are mostly water with a bit of coconut and then they add gums (eg. gellan gum, locust bean gum) as thickeners, whereas we use coconut water, which has a higher viscosity, so we don't have to add thickeners." (The cellulose gel and gum in the Vita Coco product serves as a stabilizer, he claimed.)
Asked about the size of the prize, he said VitaCoco was going after a sizeable share of the entire milk market. "That's the addressable market. We don't think in terms of 'alternative milk.'"
As for the US coconut water market, in which Vita Coco remains the market leader with a 45% share, it's still growing, claimed Pinakatt, with the healthiest growth coming from the premium and super premium segments. "Household penetration is still only 11% so there is still a lot of runway."