ZICO (beverage)
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| Industry | Beverage |
|---|---|
| Founded | 2004 New York City, New York, U.S. |
| Founder | Mark Rampolla |
| Headquarters | El Segundo, California, U.S. |
| Parent | The Coca-Cola Company |
ZICO (pronunciation: Zee – Koh) Beverages LLC, a subsidiary of The Coca-Cola Company, manufactures coconut water. Currently the brand has a variety of flavors including: natural, chocolate, latte, mango, passion fruit, pineapple and tropical.
Mark Rampolla founded Zico in 2004 in New York City after being introduced to coconut water as a Peace Corps volunteer in Central America. As an athlete and advocate of healthy living, Rampolla saw the opportunity to distribute coconut water in the United States as a nutritional beverage while boosting economies of coconut-producing nations. Rampolla first sold his products out of a rented van to yoga studios. From there, it was propelled by the yoga community as a drink for hydration.
In 2009, The Coca-Cola Company purchased a minority stake in ZICO and increased that to a majority stake in 2012 through its Venturing and Emerging Brands (VEB) group. In 2013, Coca-Cola purchased the outstanding stake acquiring ZICO in the process.
ZICO contains pure coconut water - often in Concentrate form and this has been the source of a litigation. Depending on the flavor, it may also contain other natural ingredients including juice, cocoa, coconut cream, coffee, and others.
Natural: ZICO Natural is the brand’s most popular beverage, and comes in several sizes: 1 L Tetra Pak, 14 oz Bottle and 11 oz Tetra Pak. ZICO Natural is from concentrates. Natural is a gluten-free, lactose-free and dairy-free beverage.
Chocolate: ZICO Chocolate comes in the following sizes: 1 L Tetra Pak, 14 oz Bottle and 8 oz Tetra Pak. ZICO Chocolate has half the calories and sugar of the leading chocolate milk and is made with real cocoa and a bit of coconut cream in addition to coconut water.
Latte: ZICO Latte is dairy-free, contains caffeine from coffee, and is lactose-free. It also has 50% less sugar and calories per oz. than the leading bottled blended coffee drink.
Flavored Lines | Mango, Pineapple, Passion Fruit: ZICO has a number of fruit flavors. They have the same balance of electrolytes as ZICO Natural, but have additional juice or flavoring.
Tropical: ZICO Tropical is available exclusively in Trader Joe’s and contains Pineapple, Guava and Passion Fruit flavors.
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Wikipedia