By: David Wolfe If you don’t drink coconut water, you’ve at least seen it on grocery store shelves. Either way, this story might deter you from adding it to your buggy the next time you head to the store. A woman from New York recently fell ill after finding an “octopus looking thing” in her coconut water.

Barbara’s Story

Barbara Kline shared a photo of the object on social media, after finding it in a bottle of Vita Coco’s Pure Coconut Water. She reportedly drank most of the bottle before finding the strange object. After drinking the coconut water, Barbara fell ill. She experienced diarrhea and vomiting for days. She said, “I feel absolutely sick to my stomach even talking about it. I know there is some type of animal in there.”

Social media users offered their opinion on what the object might be. Some said it looked like a mouse, while others said it looked like a squid. Barbara explained she would like the object to be tested. She said, “All I want is somebody to see it for themselves and understand that this is not right. I understand that products get moldy… and sometimes spoil but this is just too much for me.”

The drink had an expiration date of July and was to be kept in the refrigerator. Barbara remembers taking the drink out of her refrigerator, shaking it, opening it and drinking it. “It was only when I unknowingly swallowed one of those clumps I realized it tasted awful I started vomiting,” she said.

Barbara immediately dumped out the water. “I shook it because I heard stuff bouncing around. I opened it with a knife and that’s when I discovered the octopus looking thing. There were four of them all together, maybe five and I swallowed one of them.”





The Company’s Response

A spokesperson for Vita Coco said in a statement that the company has been in touch with Barbara since the incident. The statement also said, “We take all consumer inquiries and product quality issues very seriously, and as a global brand have protocols to properly investigate quality inquiries. We asked Ms. Kline for the product information for this unit on April 26, 2017, so that we could report the issue to quality control and investigate it further, but only received that information on Friday, May 5, 2017.”

The statement continued, “As it stands now, we are reviewing Ms. Kilne’s claim thoroughly so we can assist her in the best manner possible. Vita Coco employ the highest standards of food safety at all its production facilities and our beverages are quality and food safety tested internally, and also by an external quality control specialist, before being distributed. However, because Vita Coco beverages do not contain preservatives, on rare occasion, random spoilage may occur. This is what we are investigating now with Ms. Kline.”

True Activist / Report a typo