Vincent Paul Zaldivar calls himself "CoCo Vinny," in fact he is going to legally changes his name. Vinny is the owner and creator of Coco Taps!
It's been a busy few years for him. He always wanted to like coconut water, but didn't... until he discovered a fresh Thai coconut, and that changed everything. He says, "so every day after my workout I had a whole thing of coconuts I'd buy and I had a knife and a hammer and I would just hammer t them open, well I broke my stepdad's knife and I didn't know this at the time but it was it prized possession German knife that he bought 20 years ago from Germany and I couldn't replace it."
That was the start of it. He then invented a tool, made in the USA so you can grab a coconut and tap it yourself. It's like a saw, and you make a hole in the coconut, to tap it.
After 18 months of design, patterns, and trademarks... he landed on Shark Tank. He beat over 100,000 entrants to get on. He really pushed the zero waste aspect of it... But, they weren't buying it.
Vinny says, "After that I cried, after the lights and the cameras shut off I was disappointed like I had never been disappointed before." He didn't give up, "every set back is a set up for a comeback."
It worked. His first client was The Wynn!
Coco Vinny gave us on a tour of their Las Vegas operation facility. He showed us how the coconuts come in, and how they brand them with different logos. The coconuts are repackaged and shipped out. They re-use all the boxes that they come in, and the customers recycle. Coco Vinny says to be zero waste you have to upcycle... re-use, re-purpose, or eliminate everything in the supply chain.
Coco Taps is sold at the new KAOS dayclub at the Palms hotel-casino too! Bartender, Jessika Shelton, says people love the fresh coconut water, and they like mixing it with alcohol too.
"For our coconuts it's great because we are really eliminating a lot of waste that we have in the world right now with plastic, and we are not using straws and we are not using napkins."
Vinny says, "I grew up in Las Vegas for over 30 years so I'm really excited to work together with them, we're seeing amazing traction."
Everyone wants to take a picture with Coco Taps, and they are posting it on social media, which helps business.
Vinny says his long term vision is this, "the real coco dream is to have 10,000 acres... 5,000 in Puerto Rico and 5,000 in Hawaii."
You can find Coco Taps at the Wynn, Bellagio, Palms, and many other resorts. You can also find it at Terrible Herbsts stores across the valley, and the largest Chevron in Jean, Nevada!
The next step in the "no waste" process is corn maize taps. These can be thrown in the ocean, even buried, with no harm to the environment.
