"Coconut Water Wars" Winner is Set to Go Public Next Week

Will market leadership in the $2 billion global coconut and plant waters category be enough to push The Vita Coco Company towards stock market gains? At the end of September, The Vita Coco Company (aka the portfolio previously known as All Market, Inc.) filed its S-1 document with the SEC showing its intention of selling shares through an initial public offering and becoming a publicly-traded company. The IPO date is set for sometime during the week of October 18th and will be traded on the NASDAQ under the stock ticker COCO. While Vita Coco is winning the "Coconut Water Wars”, it didn't always look that way with categorical growth drawing the attention of beverage giants, The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, that entered the category through acquisitions in 2009. It’s no easy task to compete with The Coca-Cola Company and PepsiCo, but the Vita Coco "out-hustled, out-innovated, and out-maneuvered the competition.” Vita Coco is now the coconut water category leader with 46% market share in the United States, a 36% relative market share advantage over the next leading competitor. When Vita Coco launched the U.S. market in 2004, it was only worth an estimated $10 million, but now the coconut water category has grown to $658 million in the United States alone. Though the U.S. coconut water market hit a peak in 2016, sales have rebounded of late with the last 26 weeks showing 15% YoY growth. The coconut water category has a cult-like following with a customer demographic that tends to be younger and more multicultural than other beverage categories. The namesake Vita Coco coconut water makes up about 85% of total sales, but there’s more to The Vita Coco Company. They has been operating inside the “better for you” functional and natural spaces for almost two decades, so they have their ears close to the ground and aren’t scared to internally create or acquire brands. They also own; RUNA (a leading clean plant-based energy drink), Ever & Ever (a purified PH-balanced sustainable water brand), and PWR LIFT (a flavored protein-infused water). They’re consistently innovating the existing portfolio range to drive wider adoption of our brands, increase consumption occasions, and take market share across the natural beverage category. I'll run through the financial data, customer demographics, sales channel strategy, global supply chain, and what's next for The Vita Coco Company (NASDAQ: COCO) in this latest podcast episode.  How I Built This (Michael Kirban - Vita Coco) = https://www.npr.org/2020/07/31/897688708/vita-coco-michael-kirban FOLLOW ME ON MY SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS LINKEDIN - https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshuaschallmba TWITTER - https://www.twitter.com/joshua_schall INSTAGRAM - https://www.instagram.com/joshua_schall FACEBOOK - https://www.facebook.com/jschallconsulting MEDIUM - https://www.medium.com/@joshuaschall