Coconut milk has only about 3.5 to 4% protein, and almost none of it is the casein that lets dairy yoghurt set into a gel. Leave cultured coconut cream to its own devices and you get something sour and runny. That single fact explains most of what is different about coconut yoghurt: why there is starch on the label, why it is thick and rich rather than light, and why a little liquid sometimes sits on top of the tub.
COYO, made on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, was one of the first coconut yoghurts made anywhere, and by its own account the first in Australia. Henry Gosling spent six months making a batch every day before he had a formula he was happy with. This is the story of how he got there, how the yoghurt is made, what separates the Natural tub from the Vanilla, the custard and the ice cream, and how we cook with it.
A 3am idea on the Sunshine Coast
The idea arrived, by Henry's own account, "at 3am on a Sunday in June 2009". He was born and raised in Fiji, and he and his wife Sandra started COYO Pty Ltd as a family business; it is still fully family-owned and Australian-owned. Commercial production began in 2010 at about 500 litres every two weeks, with Henry making and packing and Sandra selling. By 2021 the factory was turning out around 45 tonnes a week. Their son Jonathan Knight runs sales and marketing.
Early on, COYO was fined by health authorities for using the word "yoghurt" on a product with no dairy in it, since the word was then treated as dairy-only. The current factory, the fourth site after outgrowing three, is a converted macadamia factory behind the Big Pineapple at Woombye, running since December 2019. It handles coconut only, with separate yoghurt and ice cream lines, and runs 24 hours. Coconut ice cream started around 2012 and is now their second-largest seller. Every product is kosher certified and made with organic coconut; the coconuts themselves are imported.
How coconut yoghurt is made
The method is the same lactic fermentation used for dairy yoghurt, adapted for a base that will not set on its own. Organic coconut cream is blended with water and a starch, pasteurised, cooled to incubation temperature and inoculated with cultures. It is held warm until the acidity rises and the mix thickens, then chilled. The tang in the finished yoghurt is lactic acid made by those cultures; the coconut flavour in the Natural tub is mild.
COYO names its cultures on the label: Bifidobacterium animalis subsp. lactis BB-12 and Lactobacillus paracasei L. CASEI 431, each declared at one billion cfu per 100 g measured at the end of shelf life rather than at packing. The starch is tapioca (fruit preparations use tapioca or rice starch), and the chicory root fibre is an inulin-type fibre. Food-science trials on plant yoghurts found tapioca starch at 1% or more gave a firmer gel and less syneresis, the whey-like liquid that separates out. Coconut yoghurt is set by starch and by coconut fat firming when cold, not by protein, which is why it is spoonable and slightly waxy straight from the fridge and melts on the tongue.
For comparison, per 100 g the Natural yoghurt carries 11.5 g of fat (10.1 g saturated), 1.4 g of protein and 0.7 g of sugars, with no calcium declared. Plain whole-milk dairy yoghurt is roughly 3.3 g fat, 3.5 g protein, 4.7 g naturally occurring sugars and 121 mg calcium. So coconut yoghurt is three to four times the fat, under half the protein and far less sugar. Those are label facts, and they are the reason it behaves differently in a bowl and in a pan.
Natural, Vanilla, fruit, custard and ice cream
The cleanest way to see the differences across the range is sugar per 100 g, taken from COYO's Australian product pages:
- Natural yoghurt: 0.7 g, no added sugar (coconut cream, water, starch, chicory root fibre, cultures).
- Vanilla Bean yoghurt: 1.5 g, no added sugar; 2% vanilla bean paste with natural flavour.
- Fruit yoghurts: the fruit blend contains added sugar; the mango sits at 3.9 g. Check the tub for strawberry and mixed berry.
- Vanilla custard: 7.6 g, with sugar in the recipe and turmeric concentrate for colour.
- Ice creams: 19.1 g (Vanilla Bean) to 22.8 g (Double Chocolate), sweetened with raw sugar.
The other line to draw is between fermented and not. The yoghurts and the frozen yoghurt are cultured. The custard is not fermented at all; it is coconut cream thickened with modified tapioca starch and flavoured with 1.5% vanilla extract. The ice cream is not fermented either; a culture is added to the mix rather than grown in it. None of this makes one better than another, but it changes how they taste. The Natural is tart and rich, the custard is sweet and smooth, and the ice cream is closer to a coconut gelato than to a frozen yoghurt.
How we cook with it
Straight from the tub, the Natural does what dairy yoghurt or sour cream would: on granola and fruit, as a dollop on dhal, curries, tacos or roast vegetables. It is thicker than pot-set dairy yoghurt, so for a drizzle we loosen it with a splash of water or lemon juice. It makes a good raita or tzatziki base with cucumber, garlic and mint.
In gentle heat it holds together better than low-fat dairy yoghurt because there is so little protein to curdle, but boiling still thins it. Stir it through a curry off the heat. In baking it substitutes one-for-one for dairy yoghurt or sour cream in cakes, muffins and pancakes; the extra fat gives a slightly denser, moister crumb. Fold the Vanilla through crushed berries for a dairy-free fool, and use the custard as a pouring custard or a trifle layer. Two limits: it does not whip like cream, and COYO says do not freeze the yoghurt or the custard, because the starch gel and the emulsion separate on thawing. All of this is our kitchen practice rather than COYO's instruction.
What we stock
The COYO Natural 900g is $16.95 and the size to start with; the Natural 500g is $11.25 for a smaller household. The Vanilla 500g is $10.99 and the Vanilla 900g is $16.95. For the fruit tubs we have the Strawberry 500g and the Mixed Berry 500g. The country-of-origin label puts the Vanilla yoghurt at least 45% Australian ingredients, which is what you would expect with imported coconut.
The Dairy Free Vanilla Custard 500g is $7.95, preservative-free, and made in Australia from at least 66% Australian ingredients. In the freezer, the Vanilla Ice Cream 500ml is $12.75, made from organic coconut milk, raw sugar, coconut water and 2.5% vanilla bean paste, and sits alongside the Ice Cream Double Chocolate (a 9.5% chocolate ripple of cacao and dates, plus 4% dark chocolate pieces) and the Ice Cream Cookie & Cream, whose 12% cookie is made from tapioca and chickpea flour rather than wheat. That one carries a "may be present" warning for sesame seeds, cashew, almond and macadamia. One of the newer lines, the Dairy Free Sour Cream 200g, is $4.30. The lot is in our COYO collection.
Questions people ask
Is COYO vegan?
Yes. The yoghurt is coconut cream, water, starch, chicory fibre and cultures, with no dairy or animal ingredients. COYO says all its products are dairy-free and verified by independent lab testing.
Why is there liquid on top of the tub?
Syneresis. Plant yoghurts have little protein to hold the gel, so a little whey-like liquid can separate. Stir it back in.
Is it gluten-free?
COYO says its products are gluten-free and that it separates gluten-containing ingredients in the factory, but it no longer routinely tests for traces, so check the current pack. The Cookies & Cream cookie is tapioca and chickpea, not wheat.
Is it certified organic?
It is made with organic coconut cream, and Australian Certified Organic certification has been reported. We have not confirmed the ACO mark on every current tub, so look for it on the pack.
Can I freeze coconut yoghurt?
COYO says no, for both the yoghurt and the custard. Keep them refrigerated between 2 and 5 °C and use by the date on the tub.
What allergens are in it?
The yoghurt and custard pages carry no "contains" statement; both are dairy-free with no gluten-containing ingredients. The Cookies & Cream ice cream carries a "may be present" statement for sesame seeds, cashew, almond and macadamia, so treat it as possibly containing tree nuts. Coconut is not a declared allergen under Australian food law, but the whole range is built on it.
Every COYO tub and ice cream above can be ordered from our website for delivery across Sydney, or picked up from the fridges at Leichhardt and Crows Nest.
