Happy Coco: start-up with organic, fair, raw and vegan products

The start-up Happy Coco trades in new, innovative coconut products. The firm was founded in October 2014 in Amsterdam by Arjuna van de Kooij and Hans-Marcus Röver. Now it employs eight professionals of various nationalities from the food, marketing, sales, design and finance sectors. Both Amsterdam and Berlin are operational centres for Happy Coco’s sales activities.

Partner in Sri Lanka

The coconut water is produced by the partner company Greenfield in Sri Lanka. An innovative technique called HPP (High Pressure Processing) enables the company to bottle the water of the King Coconut without pasteurizing and using additives but at the same time to achieve a long shelf life. “By consistently applying HPP in a closed cold chain they have been able to extend the shelf life of Happy Coconut’s coconut water to two months, which is a huge advantage for the retail trade,” sales manager Matthias Nitschke explains. He also emphasizes that “we see our business making a significant contribution to improving the social and economic situation of the coconut farmers in Sri Lanka and we’ve deliberately located a large part of the value added (bottling, etc.) in Sri Lanka itself.“ The products of Happy Coco are certified organic and fair and are raw and naturally vegan.

Wide range of products

Happy Coco not only supplies coconut water in eye-catching pink PET bottles but is also going to market from April 2016 vegan coconut yogurt in five flavours (natural, vanilla, strawberry, mango and pineapple). They chose the pink for the packaging because fresh, untreated coconut water is pink in colour. “This pink colour is our trademark,” Nitschke explains. At BioFach the reaction to the products was overwhelming. He says that traders from 13 European countries plus Hong Kong already want to list the products.  Hans-Markus Röver points out: “We’ll be creating an innovative and high-quality product family under the strong Happy Coco brand.“ And he adds that their top priority is maintaining the fair trade status and the organic quality of the products and consistently developing the strong brand profile.