Tell people you work for a coconut company in the Philippines and they picture copra drying by the roadside, or a jar of virgin coconut oil. That picture is fair. It describes most of the industry. It just doesn't describe us.
We are not nuts. Lionheart Farms taps the coconut flower, not the coconut, and every product we sell starts with that one liquid. If you source ingredients, import food, or build a food brand, this post explains what we harvest, how it travels from palm to bottle, and what that means for the products you buy from us. For supply and private label details, see our Business Solutions page.
What Is Coconut Flower Sap?
Coconut flower sap is the clear, naturally sweet liquid that flows from the unopened flower bud of a coconut palm. Collecting it is called coconut flower tapping: harvesting sap directly from the blossom, before it becomes a coconut. The Philippine Coconut Authority describes coconut sugar the same way, as a product of tapping the palm's unopened inflorescence (PTV News).
The sap is more than sugar water. It carries nine essential amino acids, 11 non-essential amino acids, and a range of vitamins and minerals. That profile is why one liquid can become a savory seasoning, a vinegar, a syrup, and a drink.
How Is Coconut Flower Sap Different From Coconut Water?
They come from different parts of the palm, at different stages of its life. Coconut water is the liquid inside the fruit. Coconut flower sap comes from the flower, before any fruit forms. If you have tasted coconut water, you have not tasted our raw material.
The difference matters on a spec sheet. A buyer who searches for "coconut ingredients" will find oils, flours, and milks made from the nut's meat. Our ingredients share a palm with those products, but nothing else.
How Do Our Tappers Collect the Sap?
We collect our sap by hand every day on our farm in Rizal, Palawan. The farm has 600,000+ coconut palms, planted in partnership with the Indigenous Peoples Community on whose ancestral land we operate. More than 1,000 active tappers work them.
A tapper's day follows the same sequence:
- Start before sunrise, when the first collection window opens.
- Climb the assigned palms, short and tall, in a planned order.
- Cut into the unopened flower bud to start the sap flowing.
- Empty the collection vessel within its window, before the sap is lost for that palm that day.
- Send the fresh sap straight to the processing plant next to the farm.
Why Does Sap Have to Be Processed Within Hours?
Fresh sap ferments quickly. Philippine researchers studying coconut sugar processors note that sap is processed within five hours of cutting the flower bud (Philippine Journal of Agricultural and Biosystems Engineering, 2024).
That single fact shapes our whole operation. Our farm and factory sit side by side and run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The same discipline sits behind our BRCGS Grade AA food safety rating from our 2026 audit.
What Do We Make From Coconut Flower Sap?
Every product in our range starts as the same fresh sap. We sell it in three ways: under our own brands, as private label, and in bulk.
|
Product |
What it is |
How you can buy it |
|---|---|---|
|
Organic Coconut Flower Aminos |
A savory seasoning used like soy sauce |
Bulk, private label, retail (CÓCOES) |
|
Organic Coconut Flower Teriyaki |
A ready-to-use sauce and marinade |
Private label, retail (CÓCOES) |
|
Organic Coconut Flower Vinegar |
A naturally fermented vinegar |
Bulk, private label, retail (CÓCOES) |
|
Organic Coconut Flower Syrup |
A liquid sweetener |
Bulk, private label, retail (CÓCOES) |
|
The Power of SLOW drinks |
Coconut flower sap beverages, launched at ExpoWest 2026 |
Retail |
Sourcing sap-based ingredients for a new product line? Our Business Solutions page covers bulk supply, private label, and certifications.
What Don't We Make?
We don't make or sell nut-based products. That rules out:
- Coconut oil, virgin or refined
- Copra
- Desiccated coconut, coconut flour and coconut chips
- Coconut milk and coconut cream
- Packaged coconut water
In the interest of full honesty: our palms are still coconut palms. Some flowers we don't tap go on to bear fruit, and we use those nuts first as seed for replanting. But the nut is not what we harvest, and it is not in anything we sell.
Why Build a Company on One Raw Material?
Because focus is easier to trace, easier to control, and easier to share fairly. A buyer who sources from us buys one ingredient from one chain, and we can show every step.
Traceability From Palm to Bottle
One raw material means one supply chain to document. The sap in a bottle of aminos was tapped on our farm, processed next door within hours, and packed under the same quality system. There are no traders between the palm and the plant.
Quality You Can Audit
Our products carry USDA Organic and EU Organic certification, and our plant holds a BRCGS Grade AA food safety rating. Those seals cover organic production and food safety. Our regenerative organic farming methods, including Korean Natural Farming practices taught at Lionheart Academy, are something we describe and show rather than certify.
Work That Stays on the Farm
Tapping is daily, skilled work. It gives more than 1,000 tappers a reason to work the land every morning, and it keeps the value of the harvest close to where it grows. Through our Partner Farm Program, we extend the same model to existing coconut farms across southern Palawan, with the same agronomy support, harvest scheduling, quality protocols, and payment terms our own farm runs on.
We don't claim to have it all figured out. But as our CEO and Co-Founder, Christian Eyde Moeller, wrote in Making Farming Sexy Again: "Sustainability must be built into the system from the soil up, not layered on after the fact." Tapping one flower, very well, is how we try to do that.