The 3rd Coco Colloquium & Techno Forum wrapped up its final day in Puerto Princesa, Palawan, from September 8 to 10, 2026. The most useful part of the program carried no slide deck at all. It was a full-day benchmarking visit to a working farm.
On the morning of September 10, delegates traveled to Rizal, Southern Palawan, to see Lionheart Farms firsthand. The visit answered a question coconut entrepreneurs rarely get to test in person: what does full vertical integration actually take?
What is the Coco Colloquium Benchmarking Visit to Lionheart Farms?
Lionheart calls this journey Our Farm to You, and Abigail Chang, Senior Product Manager at Lionheart Farms, shared the story behind it at a recent gathering hosted by the Department of Trade and Industry's MIMAROPA office (DTI MIMAROPA), speaking directly to the farmers and MSMEs in the room.
The message opened with a simple observation: the coconut holds enormous untapped opportunity, and the real question is how to unlock more of it.
Lionheart began with coconut flower sap, or tuba, and turned it into a product line for the market. A good product alone was not enough. The team needed to know what people actually wanted and how to get the product into their hands. DTI's support through the Coconut Farmers and Industry Development Plan (CFIDP) opened that door: local and international trade fairs put Lionheart in front of real buyers and consumers.
That exposure became a two-way education. Buyers said what they liked, and what they wanted changed. Products the team thought were ready still needed work. Each trip home carried a new lesson, and each lesson pulled Lionheart closer to the people it serves.
Why Do Coconut MSMEs Travel to Rizal, Palawan to See Lionheart Farms?
That process raised a bigger question: how far can the value of a single coconut actually stretch? A raw material never limits itself to one product. Quality can improve, packaging can change, and new markets can open, and every gain in product and market translates into a bigger opportunity for farmers.
The gains do not stop with farmers. A growing business needs workers, packaging, trucks, and suppliers. Growth creates jobs and income across the whole chain, so building a more valuable product was never just about the company. It was about everyone connected to it.
One line from the address captures the whole philosophy: do not waste what you already have. If a part of the coconut still has use left in it, if waste can become a new product or a new source of income, find the way to make that happen. The answer often sits closer than it looks, in the farm, in the coconut, in the community already doing the work.
That thinking now shapes where Lionheart takes its products next, from stores and international markets to e-commerce, so that anyone looking for Philippine coconut products can find and buy them with ease.
What Is Lionheart Farms, and How Did It Start?
Lionheart Farms began in Rizal, Southern Palawan, in 2015 and runs a fully integrated model from nursery to retail shelf. The company has planted over 600,000 palms in partnership with Indigenous communities, built a network of local partner farms, and opened a factory that turns coconut flower sap into beverages, condiments, and sweeteners. These products reach the world under Lionheart's own brands, including CÓCOES and The Power of SLOW, as private-label solutions and in bulk.
Most coconut MSMEs work in silos: a farmer here, a processor there, a trader somewhere else. Lionheart shows what it takes to connect all three under one roof.
"When every part of the chain is left to fend for itself, value leaks away. But when the system is actively coordinated from soil to market, productivity, quality, traceability, and value capture can all improve together." — Christian Eyde Moeller, Co-Founder & CEO, Lionheart Farms, from "Making Farming Sexy Again"
What Will Coco Colloquium Participants See During the Farm Visit?
The visit unfolds in three parts.
Regenerative farm operations. Lionheart Farms was inspired by Korean Natural Farming methods: chemical-free, soil-first practices that participants walk through in the field rather than read about in a handout. The palms grow in small pockets across the landscape, a layout that protects biodiversity and keeps wildlife corridors open. Anyone thinking about long-term yield should study this land-use approach closely.
Factory-level processing. From classifying and filtering coconut sap to pasteurization, evaporation, and final filling and packing, the factory demonstrates quality assurance at scale. It manufactures for Lionheart's own retail brands and for outside clients' private labels alike.
Commercial distribution architecture. This part matters most for MSME owners. Lionheart connects farm output to global markets through distributors, importers, sales agents, B2B resellers, and its own global fulfillment platform, all drawing from the same production base.
What Do Lionheart Farms' Environmental Numbers Show?
Lionheart's high-yield coconut palm varieties feed 400 people per hectare, ahead of sugarcane, oil palm, and rain-fed rice in productivity. Each palm captures and stores roughly 350 kg of CO2 a year, about four times what an equivalent area of humid tropical rainforest sequesters. Once its planting program matures fully, Lionheart projects it will capture more emissions than Palawan's entire power sector produces today. That is a target, not a current figure.
For an industry that increasingly has to prove sustainability claims to buyers abroad, the number that matters most is not any single figure. It is that Lionheart can produce this kind of data at all. That is the template worth copying.
What Can Other Coconut MSMEs Take Away From the Visit?
The real test of any benchmarking trip is what participants do with it afterward. A few things worth carrying home:
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Start where you are. Not every MSME will plant 600,000 palms, but every operation can adopt a piece of the regenerative approach or tighten its own quality control.
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Think in systems, not stages. The biggest gains come from connecting stages that used to run independently: sourcing, processing, and selling.
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Sustainability sells the product. These environmental practices do not sit apart from the business model. Global buyers pay for exactly this kind of proof, so treat it as a growth lever, not a cost to absorb.
A Chain That Runs Both Ways
The 3rd Coco Colloquium & Techno Forum packed its three days with sessions on AI tools, packaging design, market trends, and hands-on workshops. The Lionheart Farms visit added something none of those sessions offered: a chance for coconut entrepreneurs across MIMAROPA and beyond to walk an integrated, regenerative, globally connected coconut business end to end, and see which piece they could build first.
The closing message stayed grounded: farmers and MSMEs already hold what matters most. The coconut. The land. The skills. The people who know how to do the work. The real challenge is turning what is already there into something more valuable, and no one has to do that alone. DTI and CFIDP opened doors to new markets, proof that support does not need to hand over every answer. It only needs to open a door so people can see what is possible.
For Lionheart, Our Farm to You was never only about moving a product from farm to consumer. It connects farmers, communities, businesses, and consumers into one chain, growing the market for Philippine coconut so more people share in what it produces, from the farmers and communities all the way to the world, and to you.
Want to see the Our Farm to You model in person, or bring your own MSME to the next benchmarking visit? Email us at mail@lionheartfarms.com.ph.