Our Story
When founders Mike Kirban and Ira Liran started The Vita Coco Company, they never expected to build a company that became a key player in the functional beverage category. And what The Vita Coco Company is today is so much more than that—it’s a company that’s invested in communities around the world.
Coconuts, of course, are at the core of our business, but as our supply chain has scaled, we’ve realized there’s a great opportunity to positively impact the communities from which we source our ingredients.
Our mission to further our impact beyond delivering healthy, nutritious products began when we created the Vita Coco Project® in 2014. Our aim is to help support and empower coconut farming communities by encouraging regenerative farming practices, helping to provide educational resources, and scaling our business to promote economic prosperity.
We remain committed to creating positive impact as we evolve and grow our Environmental, Social, Governance (“ESG”) roadmap and continue to bring you the delicious, nutritious beverages you know and love.
Best friends Mike Kirban and Ira Liran founded The Vita Coco Company in 2003 and it has grown to create positive impact in communities across the world.
Our manufacturing partners use as many parts of the coconut as possible, from turning the husks into plant mulch to generating renewable energy from the shells.
Children in one of our coconut growing communities in the Philippines stand outside a classroom built with the support of The Vita Coco Project. This space has evolved beyond a traditional classroom and now serves as a central gathering hub for the community as well.
Becoming a Public Benefit Corporation
To further our commitment to positively impact our communities and the environment in which we operate, The Vita Coco Company evolved our corporate structure to a Delaware public benefit corporation (“PBC”) in 2021. Making the strategic decision to restructure the business as a PBC has enabled us to generate greater social and public good and operate in a more responsible and sustainable manner.
Operating as a PBC also means that our decision-making goes beyond solely maximizing shareholder value. We operate our business in support of our specific company purpose:
To harness, while protecting, the environment and nature’s resources by producing ethical, sustainable, and nourishing beverage and consumer good products.
To achieve this, it means working with a wide array of stakeholders, including farmers and their communities, packaging and ingredient suppliers, co-manufacturers, distributors, retail partners, and consumers to collaboratively broaden our impact. We believe that by working with smallholder family farms to understand and mitigate our environmental impact in the coconut industry, we can create healthy products that benefit the planet, communities, and our business.
Becoming a Certified B Corporation
In December 2021, we became a Certified B Corporation (“B Corp”), meaning we are a business that balances profit and purpose to meet the highest verified standards of social and environmental performance, public transparency, and legal accountability. The certification process evaluates a company's overall social and environmental impact, including its supply chain, employee practices, governance, and community engagement.
We’re honored to have received the B Corp Certification, expanding on the B Corp Certification our UK subsidiary received in 2019. As we sought to improve our business systems, pursuing the Certification was a natural step in our ongoing journey to prioritize the wellbeing of our planet and its inhabitants. This recognition is one way we hold ourselves accountable to external stakeholders while ensuring our business’ long-term success.
Our Priority Issues
The key topics identified from our materiality assessment form the foundation for the broader social and sustainability focus areas that we aim to address. We grouped related material issues into broader areas that allow us to take a more holistic approach to address the most significant environmental, social, and governance concerns within our control. From these broader areas, we have established three pillars that serve as our ESG framework and guide our strategy, ensuring that our efforts are focused and aligned. The three pillars represent the core areas where we can make the most significant impact and provide a strategic direction for our company.
