Vita Coco has spent years telling consumers that coconut water can be a sports drink. Now it’s going one step further, making its coconut water taste more like a sports drink. In 2027, the coconut water brand will roll out several new “sports-drink-inspired” flavors, including Blue Raspberry, Fruit Punch, and Lemon Lime, designed to be “light and chuggable.”
It’s an interesting time to take this strategy. While The Vita Coco Company has said it’s “doubling down” on marketing hydration as a benefit of coconut water, PWR Lift, its previously launched hydration product, seems to be discontinued (more on that in a second).
Vita Coco claims the new coconut waters have “3.5x the electrolytes of the leading sports drink,” which the small print shows is 1265 mg per 500 ml, compared to roughly 292 mg per 500 ml in the leading sports drink. The brand’s flagship coconut water has 1,149 mg per 500 ml, according to its website, so there’s a slight (about 10%) bump in electrolytes. Still, the new SKUs seem to be a flavor play rather than a real shift in functionality, with the biggest change not being what’s inside the bottle, but how the brand is positioned.
Whether or not it hits with the sports drink consumer, the flavors could bring in shoppers who think they don’t like coconut water. At a May fireside chat with shareholders and analysts, The Vita Coco Company Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Michael Kirban called the brand’s pineapple SKU a “gateway” flavor to overcome “[fear] of the flavor of coconut water.”
“I think probably the biggest barrier to consumers coming into the category is still taste or even perception of taste, and that’s something that we continually try to overcome,” Kirban said.
But back to sports drinks. The Vita Coco Company has tried to hit this set before, both with a very short lived Vita Coco Sport line in 2014 as well as with the launch of PWR LIFT in 2021. Billed as a way to “elevate your hydration,” PWR LIFT had 650mg of electrolytes per 500ml, plus 10g of protein and zero sugar.
In its February 10-K filing, The Vita Coco Company indicated change was afoot, writing, “While PWR LIFT has proved to be attractive in online sales channels, we are still forming a successful long-term approach to retail channels. In 2026, we will continue online sales of PWR LIFT while redesigning our approach to succeeding in the protein drink category.”
Despite stating it would continue to be sold in ecommerce, the PWR LIFT Amazon storefront now directs shoppers to other Vita Coco products, and its social channels are gone. Limited SKUs are still available through The Vita Coco Company’s wholesale site, making its status murky.
PWR Lift asked consumers to take in a lot in the few seconds they spent at the shelf: hydration + protein + recovery + zero sugar. Now with the Vita Coco hydration SKUs the brand is simply using its existing brand IP and positioning. Still, with this launch and its 2025 marketing campaign that utilized a slew of professional athletes, I wonder whether Vita Coco is trying to replace sports drinks with coconut water or become a sports drink itself. Perhaps we’ll see PWR Lift focus more on protein and Vita Coco act as the company’s hydration play.
Like poppi Lift, Let’s see where the new flavors wind up in store. If the go into coconut water, it may be harder to attract new gym-going consumers who have a specific set on their shopping list. But if it’s next to Gatorade and Powerade, the proposition is clear: a coconut-water-based alternative to the sports drink you’re already considering.