innocent drinks

the people's label

2009-07-15T10:18:38+01:00

You might remember we ran a competition back in May where you could write your own label for one of our bottles.

There were over 300 entries and last week, the innocent family voted for their favourite.

It was a close call but in the end, Chloe from Enniskillen was the hands down winner.

Her words will be joining the brand new set of labels that we've been working on and that are literally heading off to the printers today.

Don't worry. The apostrophe in 'people's' is fully present in Chloe's winning label. It just got missed on this competition template. Wrists have been slapped and ears well clipped as a result.

Here's a little sneak preview of what's in store from our shiny new packaging collection (by way of a treat/apology for poor punctuation)

Big well done again to Chloe on her excellent label. Keep your eyes peeled for our new Autumn/Winter label collection, on shelf from September.

summer reads (makes me feel fine)

2009-07-14T16:06:01+01:00

Don't fancy chancing it last minute at the airport bookshop or leafing through the array of dog eared, musty smelling paperbacks at the holiday cottage this summer?

Then let these good folk recommend some top reads to pass the time on whichever beach/poolside/country stile you happen to be reclining on this holiday season.

Charlie H recommends: The Road Home by Rose Tremain

'All about this guy from Eastern Europe who escapes tragedy to save money, chase dreams and hit the rawness of the streets of London. It's a real tear jerker. And if you don't cry, then basically, you've got no soul.'

Jo G recommends: The Book Thief by Markus Zusak

'Death tells the story all about a little girl growing up in Nazi Germany. It's a poignant tragedy that makes you think about death in a totally different way. An utterly gripping read.'

Dan recommends: What I talk about when I talk about running by Haruki Murakami

'I loved this book about running. It made me think a bit about why I run, and why we do things in general. The result? I will run a little more.'

Tansy recommends: You can be as young as you think by Tim Drake and Chris Middleton

'I don't usually delve too much into books that make me 'prod myself' - far too scary - but this is a nudging gem. All about taking a youthful outlook on life and making it much more fun in the process. My brain age is apparently nearing middle age (it starts going downhill from 23) so I found it just in time. Hopefully by the end of the summer, I'll be all teenager like again.'

Gav recommends: Christine by Stephen King

'Possessed 1958 Plymouth Fury. Drives itself. Kills people. Doesn't like owner's girlfriend. Only one chapter to go. Hecking loving it.'

If after that final rave review you fancy reading more about maniacal motors, then just guess below which page Gav is currently on and if you're within 22 pages, we'll send you the book once he's finished reading it.

guardian angels

2009-07-13T18:05:49+01:00

We have a group of 16 people at Fruit Towers collectively known as The Foundation Guardians.

This is them pictured below (well some of them)

Angelic, aren't they? Their day jobs span everything from IT to Marketing but they also spend some time looking after the various projects that the innocent foundation supports.

Every year, innocent gives 10% of it's profits to charity, most of which go to the innocent foundation. The Foundation then invests in rural development projects (run by NGOs) in countries where we source our fruit. We have 16 projects on the go at the moment and the Guardians all look after one of them, keeping in touch with the relevant project partners, reporting back to the business on progress, and generally keeping an eye out.

Every now and then, the Guardians all get together to update each other and last week, Catriona Fox (from Find Your Feet) and Peter Ryan (the CEO of the Microloan Foundation) came in to tell us all about microfinance.

Mircofinance involves lending small amounts of money to people in rural communities to enable them to start small businesses and improve their own lives. It's the focus of a number of our projects so it was great to get a really indepth talk from two experts in the field.

They really know their stuff so it was good to be able to hear them describe their work and ask them lots of questions. Plus Sustainability Jess made cake. Which is always essential for a good meeting.

I'm afraid we ate all the cake, but if you are interested in watching the video that Peter showed us it's here...

Watch this space for more Guardian updates, coming very soon.

toast anyone?

2009-07-13T11:29:55+01:00

To cut down the toast queue, we have got a monster toaster installed in the kitchen

It is only on during peak toast times (8-9:30am and 3pm), is much more energy efficient than using lots of little ones and has provided much excitement all round

Especially when you might have ignored the instructions and put it through twice

Crumpets work fine though

Just waiting now to see who tries cheese-on-toast first

friday predictions

2009-07-10T12:59:36+01:00

The weekend will start at 6pm sharp today.

It might rain this afternoon. It might not.

Tomorrow will definitely be Saturday.

And Mike of London, it's time to sell those cufflinks.

love from liverpool

2009-07-09T09:32:27+01:00

Nick's just ridden through Liverpool

You can see his most recent soundshow of his cycle ride here

the wonderful world of vending

2009-07-07T15:45:07+01:00

A couple of weeks ago, we featured Charlie, Helen and Andy's thrilling encounter with a pizza vending machine in France.

Since then, lots of you have sent us in photos and tales of more vending machine magic and we thought it was only fair to share these convenience gems with all and sundry.

So here's a Tony Hart style gallery of our favourites.

First up is this beauty that Tom took and sent to us from Southampton.

Judging by the vending slots, there appear to be just two serving sizes. 'Small' and 'Greedy'.

Lucy found a machine in Amsterdam which sells everything from 'instant' fry ups to fishfinger sandwiches.

Whilst over in Toronto, Frankie found a machine that sold worms.

In Frankfurt airport, you can buy gold.

That's right - solid gold (thanks to Maggie for the link).

And Angie wrote a little lament about the hamburger and chips vending machine that once graced the canteen of her local hospital in Birmingham but alas is no more.

However, the winner for best vending machine photostory must go to Vicki for the state-of-the-art vending potato machine she documented near her home in Leuven, Belgium (which also boasts a brooadautomat nearby which sells bread).

To buy your potatoes, just open the door and pop your money in the machine.

Remove spuds carefully.

And then get your dad to carry them home.

It's open all year apparently.

Handy to know if you ever find yourself with a sudden tuber craving in the middle of the Flemish countryside.

on the future

2009-07-03T10:15:42+01:00

Ever wondered what the future will look like? Well it's going to be domestic bliss by the look of it, with Japanese robots that lovingly make you a cup of fresh coffee.

And floor bound UFO things that eat up your split baguettes.

Start to think about about selling your shares in Starbucks and Dyson now.

strange, but true

2009-07-02T17:13:09+01:00

The Electric Brae is a gravity hill in Scotland where cars appear to be drawn uphill by mystery forces. Sounds strange? Have a watch of this.

all white now

2009-06-30T16:31:44+01:00

Last Monday, we promised to update you on the whiteness of Andrew's new shoes after a week of him wearing them in.

Unfortunately, Andrew didn't come to work on Friday (he was off queuing for Wimbledon tickets with his dad from 4am or something) so that shoe update pleasure was denied.

For everyone who dutifully logged back in on Friday, eager for a peek at how said shoes were doing, here's how they're looking today.

Not bad considering they've been subjected to grass stains, pigeon poo and falafel juice.

freezie squeezie

2009-06-30T14:45:13+01:00

It's hot outside so Eleanor had the genius idea of making home made ice pops.

Ladies and Gentlemen we proudly present the Frozen Squeezie.

Step one: Take Squeezie.

Step two: Put in freezer.

Step three: (this is the tricky part) Wait a little.

Step four: Enjoy - as demonstrated here by Ed G

Tasty.

The good news is it couldn't be easier to join in at home, especially as they're on a special £1 offer down at Tescos this very minute.

(the squeezies that is, not Ed G)

a musical odyssey

2009-06-30T13:20:16+01:00

I went off to the D&AD new blood show last night for a bit of creative inspiration from the next generation of young creative go-getters. It was great to see some of the students working on self initiated briefs for innocent (unfortunately I didn't have a camera so can't share their work with you). But here is my own highlight of the show by the very talented Eleanor Stewart from Glasgow School of Art. Well worth a watch.

Ye-ha.

free smoothie today

2009-06-26T11:42:17+01:00

If you buy this today (Friday 26th June 2009).

Go to this page.

And then follow the message here.

You'll find a free coupon for one our smoothies, valid til Sunday (plus another 50p off voucher valid til next week).

Happy Friday indeed.

DIY watering can

2009-06-24T18:50:05+01:00

Found this handy tip in my brother's magazine the other day for recycling old bottles to make your own watering can

I didn't have an empty milk carton handy but it seems to work just as well with an empty smoothie bottle.

Just pierce a few holes in the lid

Fill with water and shake viorously over your plants (or hanging baskets that still need to be hung).

Then place with the rest of your gardening gear for safekeeping

Alternatively, you could just fill an empty bottle and pour the water straight on.

But then you'd lose that all important sprinkler effect/satisfaction of making your own gardening equipment.

the innocent portion-o-meter

2009-06-24T17:11:01+01:00

The highly observant of you may have noticed a flat screen TV with a green apple and red pepper on it in the background of our AGM films.

This is in fact our 'innnocent portion-o-meter' that shows how many individual portions of fruit and veg we have sold in a day at any one point in time.

It was invented by our Dave from IT who's good with numbers and codes and things. Thanks Dave. And well done Britain, you've already enjoyed over a million fruit portions via our smoothies today and it's not even gone six o'clock yet.

Dave and his portion-o-meter.

long distance nick

2009-06-23T15:28:05+01:00

Do you live on the coast? Know any nice places to eat or a man who crafts fiddles or makes surfboards for a living?

Then Nick would like to know.

Nick is the chap responsible for most of the photos in howies' catalogues and for the next 3 months, he'll be cycling the 5000 mile or so bikeride clockwise round the coast of Britain.

As well as raising money for charity, he's also going to be making little films about the artisan types who live and work along the coast to post here.

So if you know of anywhere along the coast that has:

Nice places to stay (with or without tent
Interesting craftsmen who like a chat
Good cafes (with cake and strong coffee)
Free hot showers/sofas to sleep on

Or if you fancy cycling a bit of the way with Nick (or just meeting him for a mid morning coffee break) simply post your comments below or contact Nick here.

He's going to be popping in to see at Fruit Towers in August (slight detour from the coast so he can catch Wilco) so we'll update you on his progress (and saddle sore) then.

casting our net far and wide

2009-06-23T14:40:27+01:00

You might remember our AGM, we went on about it a bit a while ago. Well, along with adding all the video footage we filmed on the day to the AGM bit of our website we've just created a brand new iTunes AGM podcast for all of the videos to live.

So if you fancy downloading the full 2009 Q&A session, any individual questions or an overview of the whole day (set to an uplifting beat) onto your brand new iPhone to watch on the bus in the morning, go hear.

making words and pictures

2009-06-23T09:24:17+01:00

We're working on our next set of labels at the moment.

There's quite a lot of tea, toast and tabloids involved in the creative process (mainly by Ben W) not to mention copious post-it notes, bulldog clips and special pens, but slowly, we're getting there.

Yesterday our labels looked like this.

Today they look like this.

Tomorrow we might start colouring in.

monday's shoes

2009-06-22T13:01:38+01:00

Are still quite white

We'll let you know whether Andrew's new shoes are still as eye wateringly shiny on Friday

tattoo'll do nicely

2009-06-16T17:55:52+01:00

Ink. Skin. Needle. It's a pretty big (not to mention painful) commitment.

Maybe you've thought in the past about getting 'Mother' tattooed on your bicep. Or Wendy perhaps. No? Not even a little bit? Don't you just envy those rock stars with their gloriously ink laden bodies?

Well, one rockstar up in Scotland (by name of Martin) has gone and got his very own innocent tattoo.

Here he is on tour with his standard rider.

Now that's what I call rock'n' roll.

(Thanks to Helen for sending us this pic in)

(Posted by Jay)

ferrero rocher off

2009-06-16T15:23:13+01:00

Mid afternoon slump? Lagging behind with that logistics performance report? Family size falafel with extra pickles for lunch? In need of a solution?

Why not try and breaking a world record in nutty chocolate ball consumption.

The current world record to beat for the most Ferrero Rocher eaten in a minute is 7 (the chap off Britain's Got Talent only managed 4)

All you need for this record attempt is an ambassdaor size box of said chocolate, 6 willing volunteers and glasses of milk on hand.

Firstly, make sure you have the correct number of knobbly chocolate balls infront of you.

And then for the next 60 seconds, employ one of the following methods:

The 'one-at-a-time' approach

The 'cram-them-all-in-and-chew-like-the-wind' technique

Or simply the 'gobble/inhale/get-them-down-you-any-way-you-can' method.

Richard managed to polish off 8

But unfortunately no one from the World Records Board was there to witness.

Noted for next time.

His excellency should be pleased though.

interesting fact for a thursday afternoon

2009-06-11T15:26:14+01:00

Wombat poo is cube shaped.

Something to do with them not rolling off logs apparently.

(The droppings that is. Not the wombats.)

camp comp

2009-06-09T14:05:27+01:00

Our new summer veg pot hits the shelves this week and to celebrate its arrival, we're thought we'd have a little competition to help you dine al fresco by your tent this summer.

We've got 3 sets of camping stoves, pots, pans and a whole box of our new summery recipe to give away to the three best camping stories we get.

Post your entries below as a comment by Monday 15th June and let burnt-baked-bean-instant-noodle surprise be a thing of Brownie Camp past.

This competition is now closed. Well done to Adam, Natalie and Nia. Camping stoves on their way to you very soon. Meantime campers, remember to always pitch your tent on the leeward side of a west facing slope on Wednesdays.

mango time

2009-06-05T14:26:39+01:00

Atha, Siobhan and Sustainability Jess have just come back from a mango sourcing trip to India and they brought some back for us all to try.

The mangoes we use in our smoothies are called Alphonso mangoes (after a chap called Alphonso De Albuquerque who used to buy loads of them whenever he was in Goa). We use them for their velvety texture, delicate aroma and extremely fragrant taste. You don't tend to find them in the supermarket that often as their skin is very delicate but you can occasionally find them in little shops. If you're lucky.

According to Siobhan, once you've tasted an Alphonso, you can never go back.

To other mangoes that is.

Not to work/your desk/that report you're meant to have finished yesterday.

coc up

2009-06-04T15:16:08+01:00

We have a little apology to make about our new special guest smoothie.

The mangoes are spot on, the lemongrass too, but there's been a small hitch with the coconuts. They snuck past our proofreaders and lost an 'o' from where we can assure you was not a planned spot. This limited edition of this special guest is out there for two weeks only, when we hope that our coconut milk will return to pure innocence.

Chuckle while you can.