Sri Lanka Meets Amsterdam
Avaera was founded by Martine Boerboom: a Dutch entrepreneur with a passion for healthy living, gastronomical surprises and international entrepreneurship! Owning a business is a lifestyle, especially without any external investment. With her entrepreneurial experience since her studies and business coaching since 2012, she can expand her own business by investing in Avaera herself. Within between, she is networking; and partly working from home and partly working in finely decorated hotel lobbies to stay inspired and meet her future customers. In addition, she stays up to date thanks to experts out of the Hospitality industry in Europe and Coconut Industry in Asian countries and Sri Lanka.
Sri Lanka is a small island with beautiful beaches, majestic mountains, deep exotic forests and fascinating animals. The country has an incredible amount of nature hotspots and is rich in cultural and nature heritage, with eight glaring UNESCO world heritage sites. From the beginning of Avaera wanted to have a positive effect on Sri Lanka, an island we love and feel at home.
Our mission is to plant coconut trees together with our B2B customers to create new forests. We want to give something back to all the goodness of the delicious coconuts that we get from Sri Lanka and other Asian countries for our delicious flavor varieties of Avaera Coconut Water.
The Company
Avaera is a Dutch-Sri Lankan company, operating from Amsterdam and Colombo. Our organic coconuts are carefully selected by small organic farms in the Coconut Triangle region of Sri Lanka and other Asian countries.
The Team
Avaera was set up by Martine Boerboom: a Dutch entrepreneur with a passion for healthy living. She lives in Amsterdam and often travels to Sri Lanka and other Asian countries, where she is closely involved in production in Asia and the customers in Europe.
Prior to starting her own business, Martine worked for more than 10 years as a management consultant at Accenture and as a project and business development manager for various startups in the EU region. She has a M.Sc. in International Business Management at the University of Nijmegen.
What's the Avaera story?
In 2007 I ended up on a yoga mat in a Indian ashram in Neyyar Dam, where I followed a training program for yoga teachers for a month. Full of dedication, I immersed myself in the somewhat militaristic program with daily very early mornings of Pranayamas, Satsang supplemented with long challenging yoga sessions. During this intensive journey I have experienced to be very clear of mind and reminded my body of my (somewhat militaristic) gymnastic past. The body flexibility was so much fun, so I later did an Acro Yoga Teacher training in Yoga at Yoga Beyond.
This experience was actually the beginning of an unceasing passion for good and healthy living and especially food. Yummie! I traveled to different countries for a handful of teacher training, yoga retreats, meditation and Ayurvedic holidays.
In 2012 I was in Sri Lanka for a Yoga retreat, where I not only fell in love with the still undiscovered country, but also on a Sri Lankan man. He was at that time on his own (spiritual) journey after several years of experience in Buddhist forest monasteries. I was fascinated by the culture of the island and its Buddhist and indigenous rituals.
In 2012 I was in Sri Lanka for a Yoga retreat, where I fell in love not only with the still undiscovered land, but also with a Sri Lankan man. At that moment he had just returned from his own (spiritual) journey after several years of recluse as a Buddhist monk in the Sri Lankan forest. I hear you thinking …. ”yes, including orange robe, shaved head, meditative long barefoot walks and receiving alms from the locals. I was fascinated by the culture of the island and its Buddhist and native rituals.
In Sri Lanka I tasted coconut water for the first time. Straight from the coconut That was really an eye opener. “So that’s coconut water, I thought!” I never really understood the fuzz about coconut water, because I never really liked packaged coconut water. Since my first meeting with the fresh coconut, I have been fascinated by the coconut and the coconut water elixir.
So fascinated that together with Kumbuk Cafe from Colombo – the experts in the field of tasty and also Vegan food from Sri Lankan cuisine – I have compiled dishes in a cookbook. The title is “Lowlands meets Sri Lankan Cuisine!” In the dishes you will taste my Dutch roots combined with Sri Lankan spices. It is tasty, healthy and completely up-to-date! The cookbook will be available some time early 2020. Stay tuned!
Because of my coconut water fetish, I started looking for the best quality coconuts. Shuttling back and forth between Sri Lanka and the Netherlands, I have learned a lot from the exploration and the centuries-old use of coconut in Sri Lankan culture, daily life, food and wedding rituals. I ended up with a friend who produced organic coconut water with small farmers from coconut farms in the “Coconut Triangle.” I felt I had to do something with this. Just bringing coconut water to the West is not enough, because there are already so many coconut entrepreneurs. After cracking a large number of coconuts, tasting taste buds and trying flavor combinations, I came up with 4 flavors in addition to the au naturelle de cocos.
Are you already thirsty?
Then contact us and schedule an appointment for a tasting!