What do the Kardashians and Gwyneth Paltrow Have in Common? This Coconut Water
You could say that by now, coconut water is old news. The hydrating, potassium-packed drink has become a regular in grocery aisles and deli stores. So what can a new brand do to stick out from the pack? Well, if you’re Justin Guilbert and Douglas Riboud, two Frenchmen who ditched their day jobs in beauty marketing and finance, respectively, to come up with Harmless Harvest—a ridiculously delicious raw coconut water with a sustainable way of doing business—a chance celebrity endorsement isn’t half-bad.
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In fact, Harmless Harvest, which officially hit shelves at Whole Foods and many other outlets in 2011, is one thing that the Kardashians and Gwyneth Paltrow have in common. All have touted the brand’s beverage on TV or online, but perhaps the best surprise of all is that Guilbert and Riboud aren’t playing into the celeb placement game. “Of course having celebrities drink Harmless Harvest is great for business, but we actually have zero marketing budget,” says Guilbert. “It’s funny because now there are assistants of certain Hollywood people who reach out and are like ‘My boss really likes it, how can we get some?’ ‘Well, you can get it at Whole Foods,’ I tell them. We appreciate the support, but we want to come from a place of authenticity. I think if we pushed our product that way, it’d undercut our credibility.”
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It’s staying committed to the vision, which includes working hand-in-hand with Thai growers on a specific coconut varietal, that has brought them success, Guilbert insists. In fact, while founding the company, the duo took risks. “We’ve definitely lost our shirts at a few times,” Guilbert says chuckling. It took two years to even get a product on the shelf, he adds. “We wanted to build the entire supply chain; that’s just not what companies were doing because they would work with existing contractors and then just slap their marketing angle on it.”
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Douglas Riboud and Justin Guilbert, the co-founders of Harmless Harvest.
Fast forward to today and the two are expanding the brand to include brewed teas and flavored coconut water. The company also recently received the highest order of Fair Trade certification and has earned plenty of “likes” online. (Publications like Thrillist and Food and Wine have all pronounced all it the best-tasting coconut water on the market.) Those are reasons why the drink is priced at a premium—about $.50 to $1 more expensive, depending on the market and retailer—compared to other coconut waters, Guilbert says. “What flabbergasts me is that we have never paid less for food than we have today,” he says. “But any kind of quality from a good source is not going to be cheap. This is what it costs to work with the right kind of farms, the right employers who provide healthcare. We’re not taking the money and spending it on billboards and ads. I used to do that for a living and I quit that job. There’s an unspoken agreement that we’re putting our resources into our product.”
