Coconut water is too good to be true?

Coconut water can seem almost too good to be true. With less sugar (and a price tag of more generous) than soft drinks, ultra-hydrating electrolytes, and a variety of other health promises, this relatively new drink manages to look like a smart choice which is also a little complacent.
The image of the coconut water is best summed up by a recent scene of the popular television show Parks and Recreation, in which the character Anne Perkins (played by Rashida Jones) reveals that she is no longer in amenities in a luxury apartment of her current boyfriend than it is in him.


The apartment, described as "Girl Heaven" a "fresh flowers and gossip magazines on each table," is heated to a consistent 80 degrees, and includes a "full shelf in the fridge just for coconut water. "
Indeed, this tropical drink was labeled the "next big thing" in the industry for several years now, and it seems to live up to its name. Thank you for endorsements of celebrities such as Rihanna, U.S. sales of the "new class" of soft drinks have doubled since 2005 and could reach $ 1 billion in a few years. As the site reports the beverage industry:
The first three coconut water brands, Vita Coco [distributed by the Dr. Pepper Snapple Group] Zico [owned by Coca-Cola] and Coconut water [owned by PepsiCo] doubled their revenues between 2011 and 2012, while 100% juice sales declined 3% in the same period of time ... However, the launch remained stable, with 60 products coconut water on the market in 2011 and 58 in 2012.
Yet, as the recent coverage of the economic and environmental devastation caused by the sudden popularity of crops such as quinoa and palm oil illustrate these peaks in demand for products made and grown in the developing world are expected to raise major issues on people and ecosystems on the other end of the supply chain.
But unlike other crops in the developing world, the demand for coconut water will probably not result in a huge agricultural change. And that's because, for years, coconut water in major producing nations coconut has largely gone to waste.
"Indonesia is one of the largest concentrations of coconut farms in the world, there are areas where we see only coconut trees for miles and miles," said Frederick Schilling, a founder of Dagoba chocolate and current owner of Big Tree Farms, a business line and product-oriented manufacturing tropical more environmentally and socially sustainable food supply chains. "The vast majority of coconuts are used for copra (flesh coconut), which ranges from grated coconut and coconut oil. Coconut water is still relatively small piece of the picture. "
Or, as a farmer in the Philippines told Business Insider earlier this year, "We have to take the water when we extract the coconut."
Unlike coconut milk, which is made by mixing and holding flesh fleshy white coconut, coconut water is the same liquid as you can find in a young green coconut. Until a few decades ago, the water was a dish you had to enjoy locally (or a ship inside a walnut shell of large coconut). Then came the addition of tetra pack it doubled laminated cardboard packaging which gives the product an average life without sugar or preservatives and new research has allowed scientists to preserve the almost clear quality of fresh produce. (In nature, an enzyme begins to change color soon after the coconut is open.)
With such changes, the market was ripe for cracking open as well. But just because developments have transformed what was otherwise waste into a new product does not mean that the industry coconut water is without its flaws. On the one hand, the growth of coconut water promises little in the way of improved livelihoods for farmers, many of which grow and harvest their own coconut on small and medium farms smallholders . Although coconut cover millions of hectares across the world, and the average plantations and large companies are not rare, the vast majority of farms in countries like Indonesia, the Philippines and India are still no more than five to 10 acres.


As Ewout van den Blink, director of global operations for Fairfood International, sees the product follows a familiar pattern. "Coco does not depart immediately other products grown in developing countries. Would (especially in Asia) seem to have a problem with the supply chain as producers receive only a small portion of revenue selling coconut water. "
An article in 2012 in time about the industry nuts largest coconut, called "Why the coconut craze does not help farmers," echoed that sentiment. Goes Frederick Schilling.
"Farmers coconut are really the lowest of the low in the world of agriculture commodities," he said recently TakePart.
"On average," Schilling continued, "a farmer sells his coconut on the general market of $ 0.15 to $ 0.25 per coconut. A tree occur anywhere between 30 and 70 coconuts per year. Thus, in one year, a tree will give a farmer a maximum income of $ 17.50. Think of how many trees a farmer must have to lead a decent life. "
Meanwhile, on the retail end, a single serving of IBA-roughly the amount of water in a coconut (depending on the size of coconuts), sells for around $ 1.50.
Big Tree Farms Schilling works with approximately 6,000 producers of organic coconut in Indonesia, where he said they pay a higher than average rate of nuts. The company also buys the nectar from coconut to convert several sweeteners, and employees carry out checks on farms to help farmers maximize the earth. Since coconut trees grow to be very large, there is ample opportunity for farmers to produce more crops under the canopy, such as cocoa and the moringa tree shrub that can be used for medicinal and nutritional purposes.
Harvest harmless, manufacturers, product water coconut coconut alternative first sold at Whole Foods and elsewhere, uses what they call an ecosystem-based approach. They work with organic farms in Thailand engaged in agroforestry or practices that incorporate a wide range of species in the orchards of coconut. They are required to co-founder Justin Guilbert described as "traditional rural operations that produce for the domestic market a product for consumption and not for further processing or aggregation of international goods. Costs" Performance and logistics, he added: "Putting the price levels that are unattractive for water professions nuts conventional coconut. "
While important, the improvement of livelihoods of small farmers is only one piece of the puzzle. The other disadvantage of this booming market, as seen Schilling is the huge amount of resources used in shipping water coconut tropics in places like the United States, Japan and Europe. This is an argument that echoes the reasoning of many great restaurants now use to explain their transition from bottled water outside the house sparkling water. Please note: There is no good environmental sense to use fossil fuel, or create unnecessary carbon emissions, water shipping halfway around the world.
With this concern in mind, Big Tree Farms has developed a product called Coco Hydro's water coconut essentially dehydrated which can be mixed in a glass of plain water to add flavor to electrolytes and other useful minerals.
"Coconut water is, on average, 97 percent water and only 3 percent of nutrients," says Schiling. "Industry coconut water is shipping millions and millions of bottles (glass, cans and cardboard boxes that you can not recycle) worldwide. This is water with 3 percent of the nutrients. "