Coco-NUTS!
NYC health freaks are going out of their minds for trendy $25 Coconut Cult yogurt
NEW Yorkers are accustomed to shelling out in the name of wellness, but a buzzy dairy alternative is bringing it to a new level. Meet Coconut Cult: a plant-based yogurt retailing for a must-be-brain-washed price of $25.
The fluffy concoction, sold in glass jars emblazoned with pink flamingos, has made its way into trendsters’ smoothies and granola bowls, but Cult followers insist it’s more than a breakfast food.
“It’s this very unique product that straddles the line between dairy alternative and probiotic supplement,” says Coconut Cult’s Pancho Gomez. (The company eschews titles, but he calls himself the Chief Flamingo Walker.) The brand counts more than 54,000 followers on Instagram and regularly sells out at the few dozen boutique grocery stores that carry it.
Founder Noah Simon-Waddell, 35, launched Coconut Cult after suffering a collapsed lung in 2015, following a series of health scares. His doctors put him on steroids, which helped him heal but wiped out the good bacteria in his gut. So he began experimenting in his mom’s California kitchen, tinkering with different types of coconut milk and freeze-dried probiotics to make something to mend his digestion. What he created was a tangy, creamy blend, packed with 15 strains of pro- biotics and 25 billion colony-forming units in a 2 tablespoon serving — comparable to most supplement pills and significantly more potent than your average yogurt.
“We call it yogurt because that’s the closest word we can use that someone will understand,” says Gomez. “But, more accurately, what it is is a probiotic supplement delivered in an [edible] form.”
The yogurt was initially only available in California, but the company expanded across the country in late 2017. It’s now carried at 10 shops around NYC.
“I saw it on Instagram and thought, That looks so thick and creamy, I have to try it,” says Rachel Mansfield, 28, a Hoboken-based recipe developer and influencer who eats Coconut Cult, which she orders in bulk online, nearly every day.
Mansfield says she likes the yogurt because it’s so versatile — she can smear it on homemade muffins or add it to a smoothie. Plus, she can tell that the probiotics are working: “If I eat too much of it in the morning on an empty stomach, I’ll feel sick.”
Sure, she says, the price is “definitely expensive.” But she’s willing to spend for a good gut. “I would rather invest $25 in my health than spend $25 on a cocktail.”
At the West Village’s Clover Grocery, the yogurt is a top-selling product.
“In the beginning, it was hard to keep on the shelves,” says co-owner Kyle Hotchkiss Carone. “It’s definitely one of those few products that people walk in, they know exactly where it is in the store, they buy it and walk back out.”
Carone insists the price isn’t as bad as it seems.
A serving size is one ounce (2 tablespoons), so a 16-ounce jar will last for 16 days. Parsed out at $1.56 per serving, it’s around the cost of a daily Dannon cup.
“Is it expensive? Yes. But as a daily dosage, it’s less so,” says Carone, who regularly eats the yogurt himself.
But according to gut-health expert Kate Scarlata, a registered dietitian, shelling out for pricey yogurt is, as is typical with cults, a bit of a gamble.
“No one wants to hear this, but the science [on probiotics] is really in its infancy, and it’s really individual-specific,” says Scarlata, who’s based in the Boston area. “We have so many strains of bacteria, and they’re [unique] to the individual.”
That means that those 15 strains in Coconut Cult might be a great fit for one person and do nothing for the next.
Signs that the yogurt is working include decreased bloating, regular bowel movements and better digestion, says Scarlata, but it can be hard to tell what’s causing those improvements.
“It’s kind of like throwing paint at a wall,” she says. “Most of the research shows that probiotics don’t seem to do any harm. But at the end of the day, we really don’t know.”