Completely popular, still in short supply! The price of coconut water skyrocketed by 4000%, a former "leftover material"

Summer is the season of hot selling beverages. In this past summer, due to the popularity of consumers, "coconut water" has become a hot selling item in the beverage industry, with supply exceeding demand.

Coconut water drinks are hot selling

Production enterprises are still in short supply despite expanding production

Recently, as a tea beverage distributor, Ding Xiaohang has been searching for coconut water drinks. A production enterprise in Xinyu, Jiangxi is only willing to provide 500 boxes of coconut water drinks at a time, which inevitably disappoints Ding Xiaohang.

Ding Xiaohang, Procurement Manager of a certain ingredient trading company in Ganzhou City, Jiangxi Province: Our tea drinks have launched coconut water products, which have suddenly become popular, so the market is currently in short supply. So I came to the scene to grab the goods.

Sellers have pressure, so do manufacturers. Ruan Zhaoping's enterprise used to mainly produce grain drinks, rice milk. Last year, there was only one production line for coconut water drinks, but this year it has expanded to seven, but it still cannot meet the market demand for products.

Ruan Zhaoping, Chairman of a food and beverage enterprise in Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province: Compared with last year's data, the production has increased by 600%. Now we produce over 100 tons of coconut water per day, and basically the products are sold out within three days after they are produced.

In Hainan, the birthplace of coconuts, some companies have also set up their coconut water beverage production lines. A food enterprise in Wenchang City, which has been producing coconut sugar for over 20 years, has also started producing coconut water drinks this year, and the products are also in short supply.

Yu Qingye, Technical Deputy Factory Director of a certain food company in Hainan Province: Consumer demand for healthy drinks is constantly increasing. The current sales are about four times higher than when it was launched in March. The current market demand is slightly higher than our production capacity.

Data shows that since the beginning of this year, the number of group purchase orders related to "coconut water" has increased by over 300% year-on-year, and the number of catering stores that have launched related products has increased by over 368%.

Production enterprises compete for coconut water

The prices of raw materials have been rising all the way

The main raw material for coconut water comes from coconut, and due to the high demand for downstream consumption, upstream raw materials have also experienced supply shortages, resulting in rising prices.

Coconut water, there are two types: coconut water and coconut water. Coconut green is a green skinned coconut, usually consumed directly after peeling. Mao coconut is a mature coconut with low moisture content, usually used for processing coconut meat.

Coconut grower Zheng Qingzhuang from Wenchang City, Hainan Province: Coconut greens are not enough to sell, and the coconut juice water from coconut greens is very expensive.

It is understood that Hainan has an annual production of about 200 million coconuts, which are generally sold as coconuts to meet the consumption needs of the local market in Hainan Province. Faced with the huge demand in the domestic coconut water market, some production enterprises have turned their attention to imported coconut. In the past, people only took white coconut meat when processing hairy coconuts, but now the limited coconut water inside the hairy coconuts is also collected, and some companies that process coconut meat have also transformed and started producing coconut water.

Fu Fangbao, the person in charge of a coconut water production enterprise in Wenchang City, Hainan Province: In 2020, we mainly brought these coconuts to sell coconut meat. No one wanted coconut water, so we had to spend money to have them taken outside for processing. Later, someone asked for it, from 100 yuan per ton to 500 yuan per ton, 600 yuan per ton, and now it's almost 4000 yuan per ton of coconut water.

Nowadays, coconut water has shifted from being a leftover material in coconut processing to an important profit point, which has also led to a significant increase in demand for coconut.

Coconut purchaser Yun Yongyue from Wenchang City, Hainan Province: The price of hairy coconut has increased by about 20% compared to last year. More people use water than meat. Demand exceeds supply, so tension begins to emerge.

Increase imports and encourage enterprises to set up factories overseas

Seize the opportunity of "coconut water" consumption

In order to meet the demand for coconut products in the domestic consumer market, Hainan has increased imports of coconuts this year, and some enterprises have also started to set up factories overseas to expand the coconut industry.

In February of this year, Yangpu Port in Hainan imported a batch of fresh coconut from Thailand. As of July, a total of about 1200 tons were imported, and the overall import quantity of coconuts continued to increase.

Jiang Yifeng, Deputy Director of the Yangpu Customs Supervision Department under Haikou Customs: From January to July this year, Hainan Port imported 330000 tons of coconut, a year-on-year increase of 13.6%, with a value of approximately 550 million yuan, mainly from countries such as Vietnam and Indonesia.

In order to reduce logistics and raw material costs, some companies have also started setting up factories in Southeast Asia, where coconut production is higher.

Ruan Zhaoping, Chairman of a food and beverage enterprise in Xinyu City, Jiangxi Province: We have set up a factory in Indonesia to purchase and store these raw materials. Our production capacity has expanded significantly.

Faced with the current situation where the raw materials for coconut deep processing mainly come from imports, industry experts believe that we should take advantage of the increasing demand for coconut water products from consumers and enhance the development of the coconut industry.

Chen Weijun, a researcher at the School of Food Science and Engineering, Hainan University: Further increase the cultivation of suitable varieties in China to improve the income of local coconut farmers. Increase the scale and automation of domestic processing, and reduce processing costs. Encourage enterprises to go global and ensure the demand for raw materials in the rapidly growing domestic market.