Consumers may not realise there are essentially two categories of coconut water products, says iTi:
It may be challenging for consumers to identify all products with added sugars because testing by a reputable laboratory revealed that some of the sweetened coconut water products, which represent about 15% of the market, fail to declare added sugars.
The market leaders in the unsweetened category represent 25% of all volume sold and include brands such as Coco Libre, Naked, Purity Organics, Zico and Zola, which supply 100% pure coconut waters without added sugars declared on the label or found in the products.
Consumers of these products are demonstrating an interest in the pure coconut water taste and the lower levels of total sugars they provide. As consumers continue to look for products without added sugars, iTi believes unsweetened coconut water is poised for rapid growth.
For that growth to occur, companies will need to properly label added sugars to allow consumers to distinguish the sweetened and the unsweetened varieties of coconut water. Unfortunately, iTi’s testing of coconut water beverages in the market has revealed that numerous brands are not properly labelling their products with added sugars.
The added sugar category represents 75% of all volume sold, and includes brands such as Vita Coco and Goya, who, combined, represent 60% of all volume sold in the US.
These products declare the added sugars and generally contain more sugars than the 100% pure coconut water. For example, according to the product label of the market leader Vita Coco, it contains ‘less than 1% natural fruit sugar’. While 1% may sound like a small number, it can represent approximately 25% of the total sugars in the product.
In addition, iTi identified 12 canned and bottled brands packed in Thailand that contain undeclared added sugars. These inexpensive added sugars sweeten the products and help mask the taste of the naturally occurring minerals in pure coconut water, and in some cases are even used to replace coconut water sugars.
The practice offers unfair economic advantages to the perpetrators. It also hurts iTi (which markets only 100% pure coconut water in bulk, as an ingredient, with no added sugars) and it harms companies that properly label their products. This latter group represents approximately 15% of the total market and brings the total sweetened category to 75%.
iTi became suspicious of the labelling of many of the coconut water beverages sold in the US, concerns that were reinforced by a statement made by an executive from Vita Coco who acknowledged in a recent interview the widespread problem of added sugars used in coconut water. It’s in this context that iTi engaged a leading juice authenticity laboratory, Krueger Food Laboratories, to determine if commercially available coconut waters are properly labelled.
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