The Vita Coco Company Announces the Formation of The Vita Coco Community Foundation

The Foundation will focus on empowering communities globally to thrive for future generations

NEW YORK, April 23, 2024 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) -- The Vita Coco Company, Inc. (NASDAQ: COCO) (“Vita Coco” or the “Company”), a leader in the functional beverage space with a portfolio of better-for-you brands, announced today that it has formed a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, The Vita Coco Community Foundation (“Foundation”), with a mission of empowering communities to build an enduring, resilient society to thrive for future generations.

"Our success as a business has always been intertwined with the well-being of the people in the communities where we operate," Vita Coco Co-Founder and Executive Chairman Mike Kirban said. "Establishing this Foundation marks a new chapter in our ongoing commitment to ensuring that our success is not just for ourselves, but for the benefit of those who support us and make our business possible. From our earliest programming through the Vita Coco Project to our Seedlings for Sustainability initiative, to becoming a public benefit corporation and a Certified B Corp, we've always kept the goal of expanding our positive impact at the center of everything we do.”

The Foundation’s initial seed funding will come from The Vita Coco Company. The Foundation will focus on programming for three key areas of impact which align with past efforts of the Vita Coco Project. Those areas include:

• Education and Entrepreneurs
  • The Vita Coco Community Foundation plans to foster the pursuit of knowledge, upward mobility and livelihoods.
• Food and Fuel
  • The Vita Coco Community Foundation will focus on efforts to tackle hunger and nutrition and create access to opportunities for physical movement and wellbeing.
• Spaces and Places
  • The Vita Coco Community Foundation will support an environment for communities to prosper and thrive.

The Vita Coco Community Foundation will be led by John Tran as its Executive Director. Tran is currently Vita Coco’s social impact and sustainability program director.

The formation of the Vita Coco Community Foundation is the latest step the Company has taken to reinvest in the communities in which the Company and its partners operate.

In 2014, the Company founded the Vita Coco Project to support the communities in which the Company operates, such as in the Philippines and Sri Lanka. The Company has prioritized programming that impacts both domestic and international communities, most recently with the project’s expansion to Brazil in August and its Seedlings for Sustainability initiative, with the goal of helping to distribute up to 10 million seedlings and trees by 2030.