Whangārei's Cocavo secures Walmart deal

Neville Montefiore, Cocavo general manager, and Chris Nathan, chief executive, at their factory in Whangārei. Photo / Michael Cunningham

A small Kiwi company operating out of Whangārei has added the entire Walmart retail chain to its rapidly growing United States sales platform.

Cocavo company directors Chris Nathan and Neville Montefiore (Monte) have announced that Cocavo has secured an agreement with Walmart USA to supply three varieties of their Cocavo oils into 4122 Walmart stores across the United States.

"The deal was worth an estimated $30 million per annum," Nathan said.

"With several new products in development Cocavo has some busy times ahead.

"Our senior broker in the US has never seen any product rolled out to such a large number of stores in one hit," said Nathan.

"Securing such a large deal with Walmart has presented the company with a number of challenges which we are currently working through with our Walmart broker," said Montefiore.

Cocavo has only been in production since November 2016 with the first shipment to the US arriving in April 2017. In a short space of time, Cocavo very quickly got accepted into 1200 supermarkets and stores in the US.

The exciting addition of the Walmart chain to the supplier group in the US brings with it the growing pains that many companies experience with quick growth.

Montefiore said: "Cocavo is well prepared to step-up to the challenges of exporting and supply. We have an excellent US team based in California to handle the logistics of distribution to over 40 Walmart Distribution Centres across the US."

Cocavo had the foresight to recognise it had a unique product that brought together two of the culinary world's healthiest cooking oils, extra virgin coconut oil and extra virgin avocado oil, to create Cocavo Oil.

"We knew Cocavo would be a winner, so the company geared up in preparation for what was anticipated to be a busy production schedule by purchasing a fully automated processing and packing line," said Nathan.

Cocavo's parent company, EVCO International, has initiated a project in Fiji where the company is establishing its own extra virgin coconut oil production factory. Using technology developed by Nathan, its coconut oil production will be a game-changer for the industry in Fiji and its farmers, producing extra virgin coconut oil at a volume and specification not seen anywhere else in the world.

Cocavo will benefit immensely from this supply given the difficulties of sourcing the volume of quality coconut oil needed to meet consumer demand.