Welltodo Today: Coconut Sales Are Soaring, Digital Therapeutics Company Raises $48m

Key global wellness news articles from around the world impacting the industry and influencing the business of wellness.

Beauty product, hot food trend: are there any limits to coconut oil? (Full Article: The Times)

According to The Times, coconut water is now the UK’s fastest growing “soft drink”, with sales in 2014 up 11% and 25 million litres set to be consumed this year.

Coconut oil has been a topic of great debate amongst scientific communities, with The Times quoting experts who raise question around the high saturated-fat content and lack of evidence around the body’s capacity to absorb the fatty acids it contains. Clearly, it hasn’t seemed to affect sales… and the ability of wellness publications and bloggers to come up with new and fantastic ways of using it.

Omada Health, Which Pioneered Digital Therapeutics, Raises $48 Million In Series C Round (Full Article: Forbes)

US company, Omada Health has a clear mission; to help to help employers and health plans tackle chronic disease in the most engaging, effective, and scalable way possible – and they’ve just raised $48 million in a Series C round to expand. 

Digital Therapeutics, which the company explains in more detail here, is an all but untouched sector outside the US. But as Forbes reported this week – programs like Omada’s are seeing real results and are addressing increasing rates of high blood sugar amongst adults that lead to diabetes.

Swisse Wellness Seals $1.67b Pay Day In Vitamins Frenzy (Full Article: Sydney Morning Herald)

Multiple bids were made by Chinese companies to buy out Australia’s leading vitamin brand, Swisse Wellness – which has leveraged a number of high profile sports people and celebrities like Nicole Kidman over the years. The company sold for $1.67 billion this week to Hong Kong-listed company Biostime.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, “The Swisse sale process has occurred at a time when demand for vitamins from China has been booming.” It also follows a string of health scares in China, involving locally-manufactured products like baby formula – which is prompting a buy up of Australian brands for their “clean and green” image, the report explains.

The Chinese market is an interesting one for expanding global wellness brands with increasing demand for supplements and sports nutrition products.

Deliciously Ella makes the The Progress 1000 (Full Article: Evening Standard)

Politicians, royalty, sportsman and…. food bloggers; it seems Brits now look up to the avocado obsessed like we do our national leaders, at least according this year’s Progress 1000. The list, in case you missed it, was announced this week in Canary Wharf and is described by the Evening Standard as including “future leaders” and “the people who keep London on the move today and have a vision of how we stay out in front tomorrow.”

Natasha Corrett, Amelia Freer, Melissa and Jasmine Hemsley, and Jamie Oliver also made it onto the list.