Launched in 2011, Harmless Harvest, a startup with humble roots, has upended the fast-growing premium organic coconut water category, changed the way that the beverage industry does business, and quickly established itself as a modern-day American success story. In 2009, founders Justin Guilbert and Douglas Riboud embarked on a quest for the world’s best-tasting coconuts and found them in a village in Thailand. Knowing that heat pasteurization or adding citric acid would kill the flavor and nutrients of the fruit, the company pioneered an alternate way to keep the product close to its natural state, and introduced to market a coconut water that achieved nationwide distribution with Whole Foods Markets and recognition as America’s best-tasting coconut water. Recently, Harmless Harvest began work on a new multi-step micro-filtration process that achieves the highest levels of product safety and quality, while preserving optimal flavor, fragrance and nutrients, the company states. Now, the brand is scaling production, reinvesting in its “do good first” ecosystem-based business model, and bringing in an experienced management team to keep it growing two times faster than the category and delivering clean, organic beverages to customers.   www.harmlessharvest.com