Harmless Harvest and New Trends in Coconut Water

Harmless Harvest is a socially conscious organic coconut water brand created and launched in 2009 by Justin Guilbert and Douglas Riboud in New York City. Seeking to make inroads into the organic drinks and coconut water markets, Harmless Harvest specializes in raw drinks or unaltered coconut water in order to offer the freshest and best tasting products possible. Harmless Harvest is a company that is committed to high standards of corporate social responsibility in the communities that it collaborates with and exclusively sources from fair trade organic coconuts. One of the signature traits of Harmless Harvest coconut water is its unique processing, which does not involve flash heat pasteurization. On the basis that heat pasteurization harms some of the unique enzymes that make coconut water so tasteful and refreshing, Harmless Harvest pioneered the use of high-pressure processing (HPP) within the coconut water industry, which it utilized from 2011 until 2016. More recently, since 2016, Harmless Harvest has introduced multi-step micro-filtration as its preferred processing method for coconut water, always seeking to maximize the purity and quality of its products. Because the multi-step micro-filtration process does not alter any of the enzymes or organic components of the coconut water, Harmless Harvest has launched its new Pink Coconut Water awareness campaign, which occurs naturally once the organic coconut water interacts with sunlight or light in general, after bottling.

Harmless Harvest and New Trends in Coconut Water

Currently, Harmless Harvest sources all of its USDA-approved organic coconuts from Thailand. Furthermore, the company helps coconut farmers in Thailand obtain and maintain their organic certification from the US Department of Agriculture and other relevant agencies. Originally, Harmless Harvest products were sold exclusively in Whole Foods retail stores, however, in recent years, the brand has been increasing its commercial outlets throughout North America. Harmless Harvest does not position itself as direct competition to other major coconut water brands, such as Vita Coco and ZICO, because of some of its unique characteristics as a niche product. For instance, given that Harmless Harvest drinks are not heat pasteurized, like most other coconut water brands, they are perishable products with a limited shelf life. Likewise, Harmless Harvest packages its coconut water drinks at the source and does not utilize certain containers, such as tetra packs.

Some of the signature drinks sold by Harmless Harvest are Cinnamon & Clove Coconut Water, Dark Cacao Coconut Water, and Fair Trade Coffee Coconut Water as well as its plain and simple Harmless Coconut Water. Similarly, in recent years, Harmless Harvest coconut water has won numerous recognitions as one of the most tasteful, refreshing, and socially responsible products of its kind.

(Read more about Coconut Production in the Caribbean and the Bottling Process)