coco is open and honest

You will often come across different names for the same natural product. Coconuts only grow in the tropics. And the liquid contained in young coconuts is drunk particularly in Portuguese-speaking Brazil as “Agua de coco”, which translates as “coconut water”.

To us the name coconut water is very misleading. Water comes from the tap and contains no noteworthy substances. However, the liquid from the young coconut is the juice from a fruit. More specifically, from a drupe. The botanical literature correctly states that, “coconut juice is the liquid contained in the one-seeded drupe, the coconut”. Juice is high-quality and we think the association with water does not do it justice.

With the updated version of the EU guideline (EU) 2024/1438, published in 2024, the expression “coconut water” is legally allowed and “coconut water” named products have to comply with the fruit juice legislation.

The most important one first: There are big differences in the quality of coconut juice products on the market.

Most of the products (including brand-name products) are made using coconut water from green matured coconuts. These coconuts are harvested for their flesh to be processed and are up to 12 months old. Coconut water was a waste product from this in former times, which does indeed have a more intense taste. The pH and Brix levels are completely different.

Coconut juice from young coconuts has less sweetness and more acidity. It can compensate mineral loss at high outside temperatures. The older the coconut is, the flatter and less refreshing the taste is, the sweetness increases and then decreases further through the ripening process. The coconut flavour also increases during the ripening process. The valuable mineral balance changes.

People in Brazil and Asia only drink coconut juice from young coconuts, for good reason When you read scientific papers about coconut juice, the results always relate to coconut juice from young coconuts.

green coco europe offers both qualities with several certification levels.

As a fruit, coconuts go through a ripening process. During this, the colour also slowly changes, from green (young and unripe) to brown (old and ripe). At the same time, the taste of the coconut juice also changes, as well as the composition of the coconut (coconut flesh increases, coconut juice decreases) and even the nutritional values.

At 3 to 6 months, the coconut is young – this is when it is at the optimum level of ripeness to drink. The coconut juice is full of valuable substances and tastes light and fresh, slightly sweet and with a hint of coconut.

At 9 to 13 months old the coconut is old (but it is still green) . So please don’t be fooled by statements on the pack « solely made of green coconuts ». Now the flesh is at the optimum level of ripeness – traditionally solely – for coconut milk and desiccated coconut. There is only a small amount of coconut juice remaining and it does indeed taste more strongly of coconuts. Many of the nutrients in the young coconut juice are depleted – because they have been incorporated into the flesh.

So if you want the top-quality coconut juice then stick to young coconuts.

Sometimes coconut fans wonder why pure coconut water turns pink and ask us if the product is still drinkable.

Let us reassure you: yes, it’s absolutely OK. The juice of the young coconut has a tendency to turn pink. This is the result of enzymatic activity and is commonly referred to as phenolase. The enzyme content, which accelerates this process, is especially high in young coconuts, and that’s why the pink colour only appears in the juice of young fruits.

It’s also an indication that the juice has been processed as little as possible.

In the USA, “pinking” is even considered a special feature: pinking is a trend there.

A chocolate bar commercial has depicted this on television for years, so many people believe that white, creamy coconut milk flows out of the coconuts when you cut it open. But this is absolutely not the case …

Coconut milk is a processed product and does not exist in nature. To produce coconut milk, the extract from the pressed flesh of old coconuts is mixed with water (and often also preservatives).

Coconut juice (often also called coconut water) is a pure, natural product. When you break a coconut open, clear coconut juice flows out of it. The younger the coconut, the more there is. And the better the quality of the nutrients and taste.

What products come from coconuts?

Coconut palms are incredibly versatile. From the tree to the fruit, every part is used. In most cases, because there is actually no alternative. Let’s concentrate on the coconut and look from the inside to the outside:

Coconut juice: Coconut juice (water) to drink.

Coconut flesh: Coconut milk products, grated coconut, coconut flour.

Hard brown shell: fuel and activated carbon. Coconut is the optimum raw material for the manufacture of activated carbon.

Fibre covering: Coconut mats, bed matresses, insulation and upholstery material, fertiliser, plant substrate for rose and orchid breeding.

Palm leaves : floor mats, bed mats, roof.

Palm : wood for the oven, building timber.

These are just some examples that show how valuable coconuts are for us today. And who knows what other fantastic properties we will discover in future.

Dr Antonio Martins coco products are not raw. Fresh coconut juice is very sensitive and delicate. It cannot generally be left raw. It would oxidise under the influence of oxygen within a few hours and it would lose its colour, its valuable and vital substances and its taste.

It is often possible to find allegedly raw coconut juice products in shops – these are generally treated with high pressure (HPP, High Pressure Processing), therefore processed according to FDA and European Fruit Juice regulations and no longer raw.

After intensive research and several hundred hours of testing, Dr Antonio Martins developed a complex mechanical treatment process and had it patented in 2006. Over the following years, we have intensively developed our entire raw material chain, from cultivation, through harvesting and production to transport and storage, in order to always be able to offer the best coconut juice in the world outside of a coconut.

This is not actually just our belief and our mission – independent testing institutes and international competitors are of the same opinion. Dr Antonio Martins coco has received many awards – for example the Gold Best Taste Award from the Fine Food Guild in the United Kingdom.

Coconut juice is a very delicate natural product. The best way to drink it is of course fresh and straight from the young coconut. But because they cannot grow at our latitudes, Dr Antonio Martins spent a long time working out how to bottle coconut juice of a quality that comes as close as possible to the natural product. It was always a matter of quality and preserving as much as possible of the valuable and vital substances of the fresh coconut over a long period of time.

Dr Antonio Martins coco is coconut juice that is completely free from preservatives and chemicals. What we do is unique and it is the reason for the special quality and the natural taste of our coconut juice. For Dr Antonio Martins coco, we have developed a very complex mechanical processing technique and continued to refine it over the past 22 years.

Nut open – juice out. This sounds easy but requires a lot of experience and expertise – especially with the demand of being certified organic – to provide a coconut juice to you which is as close as possible to the young coconut on a sandy tropical island.

The coconut farmers harvest the coconuts and take them to our partner businesses in the country in which they were grown. There, the young nuts are opened and the fresh coconut juice is immediately filtered, not or just gently pasteurized. As fresh juice, not concentrated. Dr Antonio Martins coco juice is an honest product: the liquid contained in the young coconut, as unadulterated as possible.

The bottling itself then takes place in a finely coordinated cold aseptic process. All of this together makes original Dr Antonio Martins coco coconut juice hardly any different from that of a fresh coconut.

Pay close attention to which coconut water you buy. Particularly products that have not been produced in the EU are often made with preservatives or other additives which are often not declared on the pack (products in cans are often questionable). And heating at intense temperatures also makes products long-lasting, quickly and cheaply – but this also changes the quality and taste of the coconut juice (noticeably sweet products, often with an obvious caramel taste are suspicious).

Secondly, Dr Antonio Martins works exclusively with juice straight from the coconut, not with juice from concentrate. This is good for our high demands on quality, but it results in increased costs ranging from transport (frozen sea freight across an average of 5,000 km, space requirements, etc.) to bottling in Germany (storage, processing, etc.).

And finally, Dr Antonio Martins coco is not just any juice straight from the coconut, it is always juice of the highest organic quality. And organic juice means increased growing and processing costs.

But hand on heart – the unique quality of Dr Antonio Martins coco is worth all the effort.

This is true. In recent years there have been increasing numbers of companies and brands bringing coconut juice products to the market. But unfortunately often only to jump on a bandwagon and make a fast buck. The quality of the product and, unfortunately, often also sustainability concerns fall by the wayside.

So it is up to people like you, the customers of coconut products. You must look carefully and be mindful of quality. Dr Antonio Martins coco is the pioneer of coconut juice. In 2002, after a great deal of effort, we developed a product that brings you fresh coconut juice with as little processing as possible. And organic quality too. With all the associated advantages for the product itself and the environment in which coconut palms grow.

And why are so many people suddenly drinking coconut juice? Because the benefits of coconut juice have been proven in countless reliable studies from around the world (> Research). Coconut juice is by no means just “hype” – it has been in fact a positive trend for years because increasing numbers of people are thinking about how they can make their diets more varied and at the same time do their bodies good.

Coconuts do not grow at our latitudes. A long transport route is therefore unavoidable. But right from the outset, Dr Antonio Martins has aimed to keep the negative impact of our actions in the production and sale of coco products as low as possible.

In order to minimise CO₂ emissions, we do not transport any whole coconuts, instead we extract the coconut juice in the country in which they are grown. We flash-freeze it and send it by sea on the journey to Europe in special containers. This allows us to save weight and volume and utilise the excellent efficiency of large container ships. According to recent studies, the amount of CO₂ generated when transporting oranges from Sicily to Central Europe by truck is similar to that produced by intercontinental container ship transport of oranges from Brazil to Central Europe; calculated relative to the number of oranges, of course.

Of course we are not yet satisfied with this. That is why in a project in 2010, we analysed the CO₂ emissions during the cultivation, transport and processing of Dr Antonio Martins coco and interpreted this as a carbon footprint.

First things first: No rainforests have ever been cut down to create space to cultivate coconut palms for Dr Antonio Martins coco. Since the very beginning, we have made sure we only buy coconuts from existing plantations. And that will not change in the future. We do not want any coconuts from new growing areas, for which rainforest is often destroyed.

We would rather accept the fact that you will not always be able to find every coco product on the shelves. Because we know that our customers appreciate that nature cannot simply be expanded at will.

Coconut palms grow around the world in the tropics. 1,000 km to the north and south of the equator. In the traditional growing countries of Brazil, Mexico, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Indonesia and the Philippines, the coconut is not a primary source of food. Coconut juice is used as a drink. A bit like us with orange juice. But drunk less often.

Coconut palms produce high yields. A single palm can produce up to 200 ripe coconuts in a year. And every 3 to 6 months. And because coconut palms are undemanding and grow virtually everywhere in large numbers, no negative effects on the people in the growing countries are to be expected. Quite the opposite. Dr Antonio Martins gets coconut juice predominantly from small farmers and not from industrial plantations. The high demand for coconut juice creates jobs and therefore a better standard of living and education. And because Dr Antonio Martins only uses organic coconut juice, increasing numbers of coconut plantations are being converted to organic ones, a nice side effect for the environment, for people, plants and animals.

Where does the coconut juice for Dr Antonio Martins coco come from?

We only use raw materials from monitored and certified organic growing areas for Dr Antonio Martins coconut juice products. The most important raw material – coconut juice – comes from Brazil and Sri Lanka.

We have known our suppliers for many years, some even since 2002, and have established trusting relationships on equal footing. This means we buy coconut juice of the absolute best quality for Dr Antonio Martins. A quality that many of our competitors are envious of. As the saying goes – you reap what you sow. We have sown well.

Depending on the variety, coconut juice remains of optimum quality for up to 12 months from the day of bottling. The room temperature should be no higher than 18° C. You can also keep it in the fridge. Here the coconut juice not only stays fresh but it also means you can enjoy the optimum refreshing effect of coconut juice.

After opening, coco juice must always be stored in the fridge and should be drunk within two days.

All Dr Antonio Martins coco products are 100 % vegan. And therefore also suitable for vegetarians, of course.

Dr Antonio Martins coconut juice has an average pH of 4.5, so it is acidic and not alkaline (pH > 7).

With our patented processing technique we are able to preserve the taste of Dr Antonio Martins coco and virtually all the nutrients in the best possible way; but we need the low pH of the coconut juice to do this.

Yes and no. Just as consuming water in excessive quantities can be harmful to the body, excessive quantities of coconut juice can too. Not necessarily because it contains any substances that you could consume too much of, but simply because this would be too much liquid for your body.

Just make sure that you drink coconut juice as part of a balanced diet. This will enable its outstanding characteristics to take full effect.

Dr Antonio Martins coco is a natural product containing many vital substances.

You can drink it without any restrictions. Both during pregnancy as well as when breastfeeding

Fresh coconut juice straight from the coconut is suitable for babies from one month old.

Dr Antonio Martins coco contains no added sugar.

But coconut juice naturally contains the fruit’s own sugar (fructose). At approx. 2.6 g per 100 ml coconut juice. It contains approx. 19 kcal of energy per 100 ml.

As a diabetic you can drink coconut juice if you determine the BEU values yourself and use it carefully as part of your individual diet plan. The calorific and nutritional values of coco products differ depending on the variety. Detailed nutritional information can be found on the packaging or here on the internet under > Products.

If you have allergies then you know best how your body reacts. However try coco juice carefully and ideally try the “pure” variety first. Because fresh coconut juice from young nuts is considered hypoallergenic, meaning there are no intolerances or allergies known to date. But please be careful when using our products. Ultimately coco juice is processed coconut juice, which can differ from the fresh raw ingredients.

If you are lactose intolerant you can use it without any worries. Coconut juice does not contain lactose.

Our coconut juice products contain varying quantities of BEUs. The respective values can be found on the product packaging. And here on the internet under > Products in the menu.

No. Dr Antonio Martins coconut juice products do not contain sulphur dioxide (SO₂), which is defined as allergen.
Many other coconut juice products on the market have to use sulphur dioxide due to their production process. Sometimes they even do not declare it on the pack.

Check carefully when you buy coconut juice. Sulphur dioxide is an allergen and is controversial for good reason.

Anyway: It is not allowed in fruit juices and organic food.

No. Dr Antonio Martins coconut juice products do not contain gluten.

Dr Antonio Martins coco comes in Tetra Pak packaging. This commonly used composite packaging contains one layer of aluminium.

There are no health risks associated with this aluminium layer. Should you require studies or more information on this topic, please contact Tetra Pak directly.

tetrapak.de

Dr Antonio Martins coco is a foodstuff.

For medicinal effects (e.g. removal of heavy metals, dissolving kidney stones, etc.) it is best that you speak to your doctor. More on the topic of “health and coconut juice” can be downloaded under >Studies.