This Thai Coconut Water Won Over China. The U.S. Could Be Next

Pongsakorn Pongsak if the tropical flavors of Thailand are bottled, built into China’s top coconut water brands, and a fortune of $700 million.

w Hen Bonsak Growing up in Thailand, his favorite cooling drink is fresh coconut water. It is widely sold by street vendors and is extracted from young green coconuts that are grown richly in tropical countries. But when he traveled abroad as an adult, Pongsakorn looked at the smell in vain. The futile search sparked a business idea: packing Thai coconut water for overseas markets.

“We have a lot of aroma of coconut in Thailand. So I thought to myself, ‘Why don’t we bring good people to the world?'” the 45-year-old founder of the regular beverage said in a video interview with the company’s headquarters in Bangkok. Today, his IF brand bottled coconut water was launched 12 years ago and is sold overseas through the general beverage subsidiary IFBH (an acronym derived from innovative food and beverages), which he is the company he serves as CEO.

If it has become the best-selling coconut water brand in the company’s largest market in the mainland. Shanghai-based Chinese Insights industry consulting firm DingTalk has more than one-third of the market share there, 28% than IF, while 6% from Innococo, a coconut water drink, serves as a healthier alternative to traditional sports drinks. The two brands compete with more than a dozen players including local Chinese brand Delgarden, which also sourced coconut water from Thailand, with a market share of less than 5%. Other competitors include local beverages as well as American brand Vita Coco and Thai beverage company Malee Group’s Malee Group.

Pongsakorn is confident that he will continue to lead if he can. “When people think about coconut water, it will appear automatically,” he said. “We want to maintain our brand reputation at this level.” In 2024, the company’s sales soared 80% to $158 million, while net profit nearly doubled to $33 million. IFBH attributed to buoyancy demand for Chinese beverages, which accounted for 97% of revenue last year. (Pongsakorn owns 91% of private beverages, with revenue of 3.5 billion baht (US$108 million), while net profit of 101 million baht for the same period and net profit of 101 million baht.

Pongsakorn is being held to his courage to succeed in China and is focusing on broader expansion. In June, he successfully listed IFBH on the Hong Kong Stock Exchange, raising $145 million. The IPO attracted a group of cornerstone investors, including Black Dragon, an investment fund backed by Soopakij Chearavanot, chairman of Thai agribusiness-to-Thai-style enterprise conglomerate charoen Pokphand Group, and UBS, as well as fund with Chinese VC companies.

“In addition to execution, the company stands out with a well-defined strategy, a deep understanding of consumer preferences and the ability to leverage Thailand’s unique coconut advantages to build globally competitive brands.”

The Thai CEO retained 60% of the shares worth $700 million, making him one of Thailand’s richest shares. (The minimum net eligibility to obtain the list of Thailand’s 50 richest rosters this year is $420 million.) Meeting this personal net worth milestone does not kill Pongsakorn’s desire for growth, and he plans to deploy some IPO gains in markets outside of China to expand some IPOs.

Chase

According to the U.S. market share of Vita Coco, IFBH is the second largest coconut water company in the world.

Pongsakorn’s ambitions seemed appropriate. As consumers become increasingly health-conscious, plant-based beverages such as coconut water have been one of the fastest-growing segments in the global $1.1 trillion soft drink industry. Global retail sales of such beverages grew more than 10% annually between 2018 and 2024 to $4 billion, with the soft drink industry averaged over 6.6% during the same period, according to UK research firm Euromonitor International. Coconut water has a high natural electrolyte content and has become a low-sugar rehydration replacement for Pepsi’s Gatorade.

For beginners, if there are few footprints of toes in the US and Australia, his goal is to grow. The two countries account for a paltry percentage of the company’s $158 million revenue in 2024. “The idea of ​​surpassing China and surpassing China highlights IFBH’s ambition to become a global brand,” said Nathanael Lim, European Euro European Singapore beverage insight manager.

IFBH was able to top China because it “has reached the right place at the right time”.

Pongsakorn sees “huge opportunity” in the United States, the world’s largest coconut water market with retail sales of $1.4 billion in 2024. While IFBH will not elaborate on how the U.S. plans to impose tariffs on 19% tariffs on Thailand’s imports, it has paid a huge potential, but it also posed a huge challenge to the Els, but it also posed a huge challenge to the Els. CLSA, coordinates IPOs of IFBH. In the United States, deep-rooted players include Vita Coco, backed by celebrities like Madonna and Demi Moore, and imported coconut water from Latin America and Asia.

Despite the slams from beverage giants Coca-Cola and Pepsi, Vita Coco’s dominance has been impeccable to date. In 2013, Coca-Cola acquired Zico, the second largest brand in the United States, but sold it to its founder seven years after sales declined. Pepsi’s portfolio includes the third largest coconut water brand at the time, one until 2021, when it divested part of its juice business and retained Brazilian coconut water brand Kero Coco.

Euromonitor’s Lim said that seizing shelf space in the U.S. supermarket is crucial for IFBH to find the right distribution partner. He also suggested that IFBH obtains almost all of its coconut water (a small amount in Vietnam) from Thailand and should consider diversifying its procurement bases to avoid potential supply chain disruption.

Pongsakorn countered that he might consider leveraging the IFBH expansion, but for the time being, Thailand will remain the main coconut water supplier. He wants to insist on providing his “Thai taste” to the world’s “Thai taste” to differentiate between Vita Coco, Vita Coco from global network sources including Brazil, Sri Lanka and several Southeast Asian countries, including Thailand. Pongsakorn said he will introduce beverage variants to local preferences in the U.S. and Australia, adding that it is too early to provide details.

According to Europeans, Pensacoen can also take advantage of his experience in China, the third largest market for coconut water. He admits that success in China is largely because it “gets at the right place at the right time.” To test the market, he first launched it in Hong Kong in 2015 and sold beverages through convenience stores and supermarkets. After making progress there, he fell into the mainland two years later, but prioritized online sales through Alibaba’s Tmall and JD.com, leveraging one of the world’s largest e-commerce user bases.

Another positive factor is the appreciation of Thai food in Chinese, Pongsakorn said. This leads to spin-offs such as jasmine rice-flavored coconut water and mango sticky rice-flavored coconut milk. IFBH’s marketing campaigns have also attracted young consumers. Popular Chinese actor Xiao Zhan was drafted into the army as if he was a global brand ambassador, promoting drinks as a “nature moment” and showing a bottle scattered in advertisements on the exterior of a 58-story tower in the southwest city’s 58-story tower. In another brand exercise, a giant sculpture of green coconut and a bottle of IF was recently installed in a seaside park in Shenzhen.

A big meal

So far, the United States has made this lead the world’s largest market for coconut and plant-based water.

Pongsakorn insists that IFBH’s asset lamp business model gives it a strong competitive advantage. The company outsources everything from ingredients, bottling and distribution to general beverages and 11 other manufacturers, but takes steps to ensure quality control. For example, parents’ clothing until April, is the only supplier of original coconut water, which comes from farmers selected by IFBH. Farmers sign contracts to harvest coconuts and extract water must follow strict guidelines to prevent oxidation and contamination.

Over the next two years, IFBH plans to diversify its supplier base and reduce the amount of coconut water obtained from general beverages to half of its total demand. “There are other companies behind our business model that we cannot replicate, such as the relationships we have built on the supply chain and the brands we have built on the consumer side,” Pongsakorn said.

Euromonitor’s LIM confirmed that the model allows IFBH to focus on marketing and drives “accelerated growth” compared to its peers. CLSA estimates that IFBH will increase revenue by 30% annually over the next two years. Its analyst Sheng said the company may retain its lead in China, where the coconut water market has not been fully utilized. She noted IFBH’s “above average” customer rating on its e-commerce platform, noting that it is appreciated for its high-quality, affordable product.

“When I really dig into it, I’ll give everything…it’s me. No turning around.”

For Pongsakorn, the drinks road has some detours. University of Wisconsin-Whitewater received his undergraduate degree and started working in 2004 at the Suwan Group, a family member, which is interested in textiles and real estate. He started out as a marketing manager for Suwan Spinning and Weaving, and was appointed Managing Director of a family golf course near Bangkok.

In a 2010 MBA study at NYIT, the idea of ​​building his own joint venture took over, and he locked up drinks after seeing a range of brands stocked in supermarkets in the United States. Back home, he set up General Drinks in 2011 to produce a range of juices, and two years later he launched the juices, starting with grape juice infused with aloe vera. He hinged coconut water in 2015 and later introduced a range of vitamin waters under the Vitaday brand, which continues to be retained under general beverages and sold domestically.

During the Covid-19 pandemic, demand for healthy beverages surged, with general beverage efforts striving to increase production to meet production. This prompted Pongsakorn to leave the company’s international business in 2023 and form IFBH. He then expanded his production base by recruiting other contract manufacturers.

Looking ahead, Pongsakorn plans to diversify its portfolio beyond coconut water, which contributed nearly 98% of IFBH revenue last year. About 2% of sales come from other beverages, such as juice and Thai milk tea, and the rest comes from plant-based snacks, including coconut crispy rolls, quinoa fries and sun-dried bananas. In addition to introducing new beverages, Pongsakorn has allocated $26 million for potential acquisitions in Asia, healthy beverages, plant-based snacks and alternative protein products in the United States and Australia.

Coconut water is a niche product today that has the potential to become as big as orange juice, and Vita Coco co-founder Michael Kirban once said Forbes. Pongsakorn said it will continue to be his midstream tay pillar, which is in line with his mission to bring his favorite childhood world into the world. “When I really dig deeper, I’ll give it everything,” he said. “That’s me. No turning around.”

More from Forbes

ForbesThailand’s coconut water giant IFBH makes its debut in Hong Kong IPOgo through Zinnia LeeForbesTrump’s tariff tides may flood this Coconut Water Sword Saintgo through Sergei KlebnikovForbesBillionaire Brothers’ Chinese bubble tea giant Mixed Inspur debuts in Hong Konggo through Zinnia Lee