'The Profit' Puts Struggling Las Vegas Business On National TV

Las Vegas — "The Profit" continues its seventh season with a trip to Las Vegas, but not for gambling or shows. Its host, Marcus Lemonis, is here for business.

CocoTaps, which bills itself as a “zero-waste beverage distribution company” that focuses on coconut water, would like to expand. But it's got problems. Many of them center on its "coco-nuts" owner, Vinny Zaldivar.

• See the opening of "The Profit" at CocoTaps in Las Vegas.

Luckily, he's coco-nuts in a kind of a good way. But his business practices border on the plain-old-nuts side.

In comes Lemonis, who invests in businesses, and in this episode of Season 7 assesses his "people, process, product" approach to CocoTaps before deciding whether to invest and try to grow the business.

"The Profit" airs nationally as a reality show focused on business but it typically exceeds all the true personal intrigue and high drama found in quality fictional programming.

The show is scheduled for broadcast at 10 p.m. Eastern on CNBC.

CoCo Vinny's coconut water tastes delicious but he also seems to be muddling things with a "coconut tap" and coconuts themselves. Is the company a distributor? An importer?

"What is CoCo Vinny selling that's actually proprietary?" Lemonis asks during the episode. "In my mind, that's the only way to make money."

Past episodes of "The Profit" have featured struggles between owners and employees, struggles between owners and their families and struggles between owners and themselves. Sometimes, the featured people are hard-working entrepreneurs facing personal loss, unrealized growth or pending failure. Sometimes, they are facing all three.

"'The Profit' is a show about business, but it's also about the people in business," Lemonis said in a CNBC news release. "For me, it's not just a financial investment, but rather an opportunity for a real transformation that helps set these business owners up for success."
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