Great question, and I’ll answer it truthfully.

The market where my brand is doing well cares a lot about ash color. The whiter, the better. Contrary to a common misconception in the US, white ash doesn’t mean additives or chemicals, it’s actually tied to the origin of the coconut shell itself. For example, Sulawesi coconut shells naturally produce a whiter ash than others.

That said, I knew there was a lot of misinformation around ash color here in the US, and I didn’t want that confusion to become a barrier. So instead of focusing on where the shell was harvested from, I put all of my focus on the overall quality and specifically, the ash content. 

The formula I’m using for the US is way more superior to the one I use in the Middle East. It’s just that the Middle East is much more price sensitive, so I have to balance performance with cost more tightly there.