Coco Taps entered the Shark Tank with their coconut-opening tool that allows you to drill into a coconut for easy access to its water. It comes with reusable taps that screw into the opening, which you can drink directly from or put a straw into, eliminating spillage.
We interviewed founder Vincent Zaldivar aka CocoVinny, who said people refer to his product as the “Tesla of coconut water,” because of its environmentally friendly component. To date, he’s sold thousands of tool kits and over 100,000 of branded tapped coconuts in Las Vegas resorts.
His future plans include seeing his kits at big-box retailers such as Target, H-E-B, Kroger, Walmart, Sam’s, Costco, Vons, Bed Bath & Beyond as well as entertainment centers like cruise ships and theme parks.
Here’s what else he told us about…
Interested in Coco Taps? Buy one here.
How the Idea Came About
I hated the taste of pasteurized packaged coconut water, yet drinking from the fresh coconut was amazing, so I started opening young Thai coconuts with a knife and hammer. One day I broke my stepdad’s expensive German knife and almost cut my pinky off. My stepdad, Bill was mad at me so I thought, ‘Why not just put the top of a water bottle into a coconut?’ That’s how the journey began.
Where You Can Buy Them
Over 60 restaurants sell our branded tapped coconuts in Las Vegas in the top 20 resorts on the Las Vegas Strip including Wynn, Encore, Cosmopolitan, MGM, Mandalay Bay, Bellagio, Aria, Mirage, Luxor, New York-New York, Venetian, Palazzo, and many Fifth Avenue Restaurant Group-owned places like Nathan’s Famous, Johnny Rockets, and Bonanno’s Pizzeria. It is surprising how well they are selling in fast casual environments. Also our Coco Taps tool kits and coconuts to your door subscription service is available at our website as well as Amazon and we are looking to scale into retail and TV infomercial markets.
The Importance of Eliminating Plastic
(cocotap.com)
Not only is coconut water important, but drinking coconut water from the source in nature’s packaging shell is even more important to our bodies, oceans and landfills. We as a planet are currently on track to have more plastic than fish in the ocean by 2050 unless we start eliminating single use plastic packaging. We can no longer recycle our way out of this. We help raise awareness and eliminate the plastic bottles, tetra packs, and cans that coconut water comes in with our Zero Waste coconut water tapping system.
Health Benefits of Coconut Water
Coconut water contains all the bodies natural electrolytes the body requires including but not limited to sodium, potassium, magnesium, calcium, phosphorus, iron, and many more. It’s a great alternative for kids to drink to combat skyrocketing childhood obesity numbers also. Growing up as an obese child myself I’m passionate about educating executives at theme parks and also parents about the benefits of fresh coconut water for kids health and our environmental development instead of artificial sugary beverages. In addition, it’s a great post workout beverage for athletic gym goers as one of the lowest glycemic natural juices. It’s way better than orange juice and artificial sugary filled sodas.
Nerves in the ‘Tank’
Make sure you tune into @ABCSharkTank Sunday at 9pm and see @VincentZaldivar aka CocoVinny make the big pitch🌴❤️🤙🏼🦈🦍
Nervous doesn’t begin to describe it. There’s no words to explain the amount of energy and anxiety and pure tension that comes with something like this because you still have to run your business at the same time. It truly is the Super Bowl main event of business.
Interested in Coco Taps? Buy one here.
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