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The coconut is known as Kalpa Vriksa to the world for being its multi faceted uses, which provide livelihood security to millions of people. Every part of it useful to humans in one of the other ways. The coconut palm is grown in more than 93 countries of the tropics. Its botanical name is Cocos-Nucifera L. and belongs to the aracaceae (Palm) family. The climbing methods of coconuts like manual, mechanical and climbing by Tractor Operated Hydraulic Elevator (TOME) were studied. The stability, safety, harvesting efficiency, drudgery of coconut harvesting is reduced by Tractor Mounted and Self Propelled Coconut Climber (TMSPCC) developed by considering the drawbacks of the above methods. The testing of developed TMSPCC was carried out at a Coconut Research Station, Bhyte Ratnagiri, India. To assess the physiological cost and the drudgery involved in the traditional method of tree climbing operation. The digital polar hart rate meter RS400TM having infrared connectivity sensor was used for recording the heart rates. The technical assessments included the use of biomechanical models, ODR, BPDS. The ergonomical evaluation of TMSPCC was carried out for testing feasibility, ease of operation; workers jeopardize safety health and efficiency for coconut harvesting. Ergonomically operational safe and controlled heart rates are recorded. The fourteen to seventeen number of coconut orchards were harvested in one hour by using TMSPCC. The tractor mounted and self propelled coconut climber founds suitable for harvesting 100 to 120 coconut trees in a day. The net coconut harvesting by using TMSPCC are 4000 coconuts/day. Also TMSPCC is safe, less hazardous and economical as compared to manual climbing coconut harvesting and climbing by the existing tractor mounted hydraulic elevator.

COCO TANG India is an innovation-driven company. It takes inspiration from the humble coconut water that all of us are very familiar with and have drunk right from our childhood. The founders of the company, Dr Neelima, a dentist by profession and her husband Chaitanya who is a pharmacist have hit upon the idea of a coconut-based drink quite by accident.

When Dr Neelima was pregnant with her first child, the doctor advised her to take fresh coconut water. It was then that Dr Neelima discovered that fresh coconut water was a paradox, the water from a tender coconut is supposed to be fresh but in many cases is not as fresh as it should be. Coconuts are harvested from remote farms in Andhra Pradesh and sent to Hyderabad. And to top it all, the nutrition value of the coconut past its ideal window of consumption leaves a lot to desire. The price factor too is a dampener. It costs Rs. 25 to have tender coconut water in a metropolis like Hyderabad.

Dr Neelima and her husband developed the product idea from their search for a nutritious, healthy drink. Fresh, tender coconut pulp-based shakes, packed with nutrition, taste, health and at the same time make an aspirational product for the young, bubbly and restless youth of India.

This case deals with the problems, the trials and tribulations that these young first-time entrepreneurs faced and details the marketing efforts the young company is putting into survive in the dog eat dog world of fruit drink industry.

The case details the specific marketing-related problems the company faces and examines what the promoters are doing to overcome these problems, specifically related to the four Ps, that is, product, price, place and promotion. It looks in depth at the innovative marketing practices that COCO TANG India is deploying, including the use of the social media that enabled the COCO TANG India’s founder to win Junior Chamber International – Business Excellence Award for the year 2017–2018.

COCO TANG India is also the recipient of the Telugu book of records ‘certificate of national record’ as being the first brand to introduce Tender Coconut-based Mocktails and Milkshakes (A1).

The purpose of this paper is to develop fresh cheese made from different types of coconut milk (fresh, UHT, and reconstituted coconut milk) mixed with pasteurized cow’s milk (50:50) by rennet coagulation. The main aim of this study was to achieve successful formation of cheese curd with fully coconut milk aroma and flavor.

Fresh cheese made from different types of coconut milk mixed with cow’s milk (50:50) were developed and compared to fresh cheese made from cow’s milk (100:0). Physicochemical analysis including pH, acidity, percentage of yield, protein and fat content, texture analysis and sensory evaluation has been performed. The nine-point hedonic preference test (n=35) and consumer testing (n=235) were conducted.

In comparison, fresh cheese made with the presence of coconut milk (50:50) had higher fat content, lower crude protein content, higher firmness, and adhesiveness than those made from cow’s milk alone (0:100). The cheese with the presence of coconut milk was liked better by consumers (7.35 out of 9). Rehydrated coconut milk was mostly preferred to use among all three types of coconut milk which showed firmer texture and admired flavor. The texture of the developed product was proved to be similar to commercial cottage cheese. Using the rehydrated coconut milk in the formulation gave successful results for making fresh coconut milk cheese, which has also not been used previously in any research.

In this paper, the effect of process conditions on the quality of cheese curd formation was not yet investigated and discussed. The process parameters including heat treatment and renneting time should be further studied.

A novel fresh cheese made from coconut milk mixed with pasteurized cow’s milk was successfully developed. The cheese curd was formed with fully coconut milk aroma and flavor.

This paper explores the institutional challenges and opportunities in Fiji's integration into the global value chain. Fiji is naturally endowed with coconut palms across its many islands. However, the coconut sector remains rudimentary with little value-addition. Coconut products of high-value are now being produced and exported throughout the world. While many coconut producing countries have benefitted from this coconut demand surge, Fiji has been unable to benefit from the international market.

This study utilizes a mixed-methods approach to analyze the challenges and opportunities. First, an analysis is done on a macro-level at the link between institutional quality and Fiji's export of coconut products. Then, primary data is collected with semi-structured interviews with key stakeholder groups in regions of Fiji. The goal is to gain an understanding of the perceived challenges and opportunities from each actor.

The empirical results show that institutional quality matters for Fiji's coconut exports. Increased scores in the government effectiveness and voice and accountability indicators enhance coconut exports from Fiji, suggesting that domestic institutions play an important role. Interviews with key actors reveal that communications among each stakeholder group are fragmented. The main institutional actors and the producers have different perceptions of the industry's challenges, thus resulting in different ideas on how to address the issues.

This study is limited by the data availability of coconut production and trade volume of more specific products. Furthermore, due to the transportation and weather constraints during our visit to Fiji, certain parts of the island were not accessible.

This paper uses a mixed-methods approach to assess a specific case study.

Entrepreneurship, Strategic Marketing, Innovation, New product development (NPD).

This case is suitable to be used in advanced undergraduate, and MBA/MSc.

This case illustrates the challenges related to commercializing an innovative product, the coconut dehusking machine in the Malaysian market. It revolves around the issues pertaining to the pre and post-lunch activities and bottleneck of the coconut dehusking and defibering (CDD) machine which was developed by Md Akhir in July 2003. Md Akhir, the senior research officer at Mechanization and Automation Research Centre, Malaysian Agricultural Research and Development Institute (MARDI), believed that it was the first coconut dehusker in Malaysia. During 2000, farmers used to dehusk coconut manually, as there was no readily available machine to help them. Thus, Md Akhir felt the necessity to innovate such a machine that could help the farmers to dehusk efficiently in comparatively less effort and time. From 2003 to 2005, he presented his innovation in several national and international exhibitions and received accolades for such innovative product. In 2005, MARDI signed the memorandum of agreement of five years to license the CDD with Phytofolia Sendirian Berhad without having Md Akhir’s consent. Phytofolia was a comparatively new company owned by two entrepreneurs – Azmin Samin and Abd Hamid. During 2007, Phytofolia changed the specification of the CDD without informing to Md Akhir. Furthermore, two machines were sold to a company in Papua New Guinea, but no feedback was sought about the performance of the modified CDD. The price of CDD was set very high and thus the local farmers refused to buy it. In 2009, Hamid left Phytofolia due to disagreement with his business partner. He collaborated with Mr Sigiarno a venture capitalist from Indonesia and offer MARDI RM200,000 up-front to buy the IP of the CDD. At the end of the contract, Phytofolia failed to pay the royalty to MARDI and the contract ended in 2010. By seeing the fall of memorandum of agreement, MARDI asked Md Akhir to decide the next step whether to sign new agreement with Phytofolia, to sign agreement with Hamid’s newly formed company Kelapa Gading, to giving up commercialization and provide this machine to the farmers free of cost or to create a start-up company, fabricate and market the CDD. Md Akhir was really confused about which way to go!

Using this case, students can learn how a small and/or medium scale company can strategize its new product launch. Based on the given industry scenario, students can realize the potential challenges that are related to launching a new product. Furthermore, this case demonstrates that producing a high-quality product is not enough to succeed in the market; right strategy also plays an important role in making it successful. Finally, it can be also learned that proper marketing strategy, good coordination and communication with support companies as well as internal harmony are three important factors that contributes in any business success. Overall, entrepreneurship students will learn how to use the opportunity and manage the innovation. On the other hand, strategic marketing students will learn the importance of adopting proper strategy, while the students who are undertaking the new product development course will be benefited by seeing the practical situation of a new product launch, its rise and its fall.

Teaching notes are available for educators only. Please contact your library to gain login details or email support@emeraldinsight.com to request teaching notes.

CSS 3: Entrepreneurship

Parallel factor analysis (PARAFAC) coupled with support-vector machine (SVM) was carried out to identify and discriminate between the fluorescence spectroscopies of coconut water brands.

PARAFAC was applied to reduce three-dimensional data of excitation emission matrix (EEM) to two-dimensional data. SVM was applied to discriminate between six commercial coconut water brands in this study. The three largest variation data from fluorescence spectroscopy were extracted using the PARAFAC method as the input data of SVM classifiers.

The discrimination results of the six commercial coconut water brands were achieved by three SVM methods (Ga-SVM, PSO-SVM and Grid-SVM). The best classification accuracies were 100.00%, 96.43% and 94.64% for the training set, test set and CV accuracy.

The above results indicate that fluorescence spectroscopy combined with PARAFAC and SVM methods proved to be a simple and rapid detection method for coconut water and perhaps other beverages.

The purpose of this paper is to develop a new salad cream formulation from a mixture of tofu and coconut oil for replacement of egg yolk and soy oil, respectively.

A salad cream formulation mainly composing of edible oil, egg and vinegar was formulated. Ratios of egg yolk and soy oil were replaced by tofu and coconut oil, respectively. The formulated salad creams were determined for pH, color, viscosity, protein and fat. Sensory acceptances of formulated products was evaluated by using a seven-point hedonic scale test and untrained panelists (n=30). The formulated salad creams were stored in a refrigerator for 14 days and determined for pH, color and viscosity.

The results showed that the formulated salad creams using the mixture of 50 percent tofu and 50 percent egg yolk (RE) by weight of egg yolk ratio in control presented 4.25+0.01 of pH which was comparable to control. The highest scores in the sensory test were obtained in the formula using 37 percent coconut oil by weight of salad cream. The formulated salad creams using tofu and coconut oil (REC) presented 4.42+0.03 of pH, 4.25+0.05 cm. of viscosity, and 87.36+0.44 (L), −1.13+0.04 (a), 16.32+0.22 (b) of color values. Protein and fat contents were 4.79 and 27.59 percent (w/w) in the REC, respectively. After storage under refrigerated, pH, color and viscosity of the modified product were less changed.

Replacement of egg yolk and soy oil with tofu and coconut oil in salad creams was feasible. The REC was less changed in its quality both fresh and after storage. It was accepted in sensory evaluation. The REC could prepare at home and being a food choice for consumers.

The objective of this work is to study the fatty acid profile of coconut oil in the kernel in relation to maturity of the nut and season of fertilization in five selected varieties of coconut.

The coconut oil from the popular cultivars/hybrids were studied in post‐monsoon, pre‐monsoon and monsoon seasons at 7, 8, 10 and 12 months after fertilization.

Nuts that fertilized in the post monsoon season were found to have higher oil contents. Of the five varieties, COD×WCT had lesser amounts of caprylic, capric and lauric acids and greater amounts of the long chain fatty acids. Though significant differences were observed in fatty acid concentrations in nuts differing in their variety and season of tagging, the trend remained the same.

The study helps to ensure the safety of the usage of coconut oil as dietary oil, from the nature of fatty acids present.

In recent years, the use of earth as a material applied to construction has been adapted as an attractive alternative to modern concepts. The earth construction technique takes advantage of regional natural resources, among which are earth bricks. The purpose of this paper is to analyze the effect of the addition of coconut fibers and aloe vera on the mechanical properties of compressed earth blocks (CEB).

CEBs were manufactured from silty and clay soil (Altamira, Tamaulipas, Mexico) with biodegradable stabilizers of aloe vera and short coconut mesocarp fibers, which were compared with the conventional mixture with lime as stabilizer. The samples were subjected to compression tests (Mexican Standard NMX-C-404-ONNCC3-205), flexion (NMX-C083-ONNCCE.), abrasion (NTC-5324 3.4.3), water absorption (NMX-C-37-ONNCE-205), surface morphology and thermal properties (ASTM D5334-14).

It was found that the addition of coconut fibers has a 12% difference in flexural strength. The addition of 0.5% of coconut fibers decreases swelling by 2% with water and reduces the thermal conductivity of the material by 12%. Likewise, this mixture increases the abrasion resistance of CEB by 30%. When there is a pressure greater than 1,700 psi in the CEB, the addition of coconut fibers does increase the compressive strength of the material, showing a 34% improvement over the CEB without adding coconut fibers.

The authors show a new sustainable CEB production with aloe vera and coconut fiber that is possible for self-production with better mechanical properties than others, commonly produced in Mexico.

Vegetable oils are usually considered commodities. The purpose of this paper is to use disaggregated import data from Switzerland to show two phenomena. The first is that a growing high-price segment exists in these markets; the second is that least developed countries (LDC) are usually excluded from the benefits of this niche.

A detailed quantitative and qualitative analysis for coconut oil is carried out, using fixed effects regressions for the quantitative part and objective hermeneutics for the qualitative part.

The analysis indicates that prices depend on the quantity imported and on the country of origin and that entrepreneurs outside the LDC attempt to create new niche markets, whereas actors in the bulk markets tend to ignore these niches and to continue relying on LDC.

Bulk markets may continue to exist, but the importance of niches is certainly increasing and should be extended to LDC.

It could be shown which market dynamics exist and which of them leave LDC behind.