Stephanie Lacorcia had a craving for coconut water when she was pregnant. However, she could find one that was “worth drinking”. So, despite having no experience in the FMCG industry – Stephanie is a makeup artist and her husband, Aaron a civil engineer – the couple decided to make their own.
“I spent months during pregnancy going through every coconut water and flavoured beverage on the market looking for something I actually wanted to drink,” Stephanie recalls. “But nothing came close; they were either plain and flat, or had unhealthy ingredients I didn’t want.”
“That frustration became the brief,” Stephanie adds. “We spent twelve months sampling and refining before we even went near a retailer. We knew the product had to be right before anything else mattered. We’re doing all of this with two kids under three, working around full-time jobs and nap times. But, honestly, that’s part of why we’re so driven to make it work.” Once they were happy with the product, they launched Coco Hit in Melbourne in September 2025.
An unconventional approach to growth
Most FMCG founders tout their products around major retail chains to fast-track growth. Stephanie and Aaron, however took a different approach. They decided to establish their brand through independent stockists so they could negotiate with the big chains from a position of strength down the track.
The couple focused on three growth levers. They stocked their product in independent groceries, health food shops and cafes. They earned that shelf space on the merit of their product and word-of-mouth momentum. And they looked to genuine consumer demand to drive sales.
“We knew we were onto something unique in the market, and our first distributor could see the vision from the start,” Aaron explains. “When we first reached out, we were told to circle back later as they were heading into the Easter period, one of their busiest times of the year. We stayed persistent, kept the conversation going, and shortly after Easter ended up securing an initial order of 56 pallets with that same distributor.
“Within the first week in Brisbane alone we’d added 72 accounts,” Aaron enthuses. “That early momentum told us the product could sell itself if we could just break into the places we know we can be seen. The challenge in this category is always the chicken and egg; you can’t get the big retailers without the visibility, and you can’t get the visibility without the big retailers. So, we flipped it. We built the visibility through independent retail first, and now we’re negotiating from a completely different position.”
In the eight months since launch, the strategy has been very successful. Coco Hit has 650+ independent retail stockists across six states.
Complementary collaboration
In a further boost for the brand, it has recently secured partnerships with with two collaborators in the wellness sector.
“With growing credibility in the independent wellness and hospitality space, Coco Hit has partnered with Matcha Maiden and Greanstreat,” Aaron says. [The former is one of Australia’s most recognised functional wellness brands, and the latter is a premium health-focused hospitality group with venues across Australia.] “This is the first co-branded product for both brands and is a direct expression of Coco Hit’s ambition to build the category through collaboration rather than competition,” Aaron adds.
Jackson McGrath is the co-founder and CEO of Greenstreat. He notes a major shift toward food and beverages that feel cleaner, more functional and better aligned with modern wellness-focused lifestyles. “Consumers are becoming far more intentional about what they drink. They are looking for options that deliver both flavour and functionality without feeling artificial or overly sugary,” he says. “Coco Hit fits perfectly into that shift. Greenstreat was built from the ground up as an independent Australian family business, and we naturally gravitate toward brands that feel authentic and quality-driven. That founder energy from Steph and Aaron is a big part of why we chose to work with them.”
And Dylan Nadelman, director of Matcha Maiden, echoes those sentiments. “When we first interacted with Coco Hit, there was a clear synergy between our brand and theirs,” he explains. “Both are loud, colourful and sit within this growing space of on-trend functional beverages.
“What stood out most, though, was seeing that the business was built by just Stephanie and Aaron,” he adds. “Parents who came together to create something from scratch while raising a family. That resonated heavily with us, because Matcha Maiden has always been run on those same family values.”
The time is right
Stephanie points out that the brand has evolved at the right time. “We built Coco Hit because we needed it to exist,” she says. “Turns out a lot of other people felt the same way.”
The Australian coconut water market was valued at approximately $433 million in 2025 and is forecast to reach $1.4 billion by 2034. That represents a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 14.3 per cent.
“Strawberry matcha has already become one of the most popular non-traditional matcha drinks globally,” Aaron says. “Fast forward now and you’re seeing versions of it everywhere, which shows we were ahead of the curve.”
- This story was originally published on Inside Small Business.
