Trump’s Tariff Tidal Wave Could Drown This Coconut Water Juggernaut
What do you do when 96% of your revenue comes from coconut water and 100% of your supply comes from tropical countries targeted by Donald Trump with high tariffs?
This is exactly the situation confronting one of the nation’s hottest small cap companies today, $516 million (revs) Vita-Coco of New York City, the leading maker of coconut water. Its biggest source of coconuts, has heretofore been Brazil, a country now squarely in the crosshairs of a proposed 50% tariff, courtesy of the Trump administration. Its six other sources for coconuts aren’t much better: Philippines (tariff:19%), Malaysia (25%), Vietnam (32%), Indonesia (32%) Thailand (36%) and Sri Lanka (46%).
Still, you wouldn’t know that Vita Coco was facing a Trump tariff nightmare given the company’s bullish tone—or its stock performance. Shares are up nearly 32% over the past 12 months, outperforming many better-known consumer-staples names. Even with the stock down roughly 5% year-to-date as the broader market rallies, Wall Street is shrugging off Vita Coco’s inevitable pricing pressure.
“Brazil is really a nonissue for us,” insists co-founder and executive chairman Michael Kirban. “We started working on reallocating our Brazil supply, which historically goes to the United States, to supply Europe and Canada, several weeks ago.” The main source of supply for Europe, meanwhile—the Philippines, Sri Lanka and Malaysia—will now all shift to the U.S. “This is something we can pull the trigger on really quickly,” reasons Kirban, seemingly unconcerned about the high tariffs in his alternative source countries.
He goes on:........
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