Karry kindly wrote in to tell us how much the butterflies (especially the Owls and the Blue Morpho) at the Magic of Life Butterfly House in Aberystwyth enjoy supping on our smoothies. Apparently they never enjoyed concentrated juice, so they're pretty switched on insects.
This is a female Mocker Swallowtail from Tanzania feasting on some of our pineapples, bananas and coconuts smoothie
The Magic of Life Trust has been set up to increase the awareness of the natural world, and if you go along, you'll not only get a personal tour, but they'll tell you all about the plants, butterflies and rainforests. So, if you're in the area, and stuck for somewhere to take the kids during the holidays, or you just fancy looking at butterflies, pop down there. We'll leave you with a picture of Semperi, a swallowtail only found in the Philippines. And now Aberystwyth.
Interesting story brewing about air freighted food (read more here). It's probably worth saying at this point that we don't air freight our ingredients.
And now it's time to enjoy the rest of the damp and drizzly Bank Holiday Monday. Whoopee.
Photo by Ann Cantelow. Thanks Ann.
Hello, I'm Row and I'm one of the People's Champions here at innocent. Apparently I have some very strange/strong phobias so I thought I'd share my top three with you. Maybe you've got just the thing to help me - all phobia-combatting advice welcome.
My third worst phobia: Ventriloquists (automatonophobia)
Weirdly, I can handle Orville, but it's the ones that look like people that I get freaked by. There's one man who leaves his dummy on the stage whilst he walks off, and the dummy starts looking round and talking all on his own. That's just not right.
My second worst phobia: Clowns (coulrophobia)
It all stems from a scary clown experience I had as a teenager. It involved a clown at a friend's little sister's birthday party who began by chasing us teenagers around as well as the little kids. I just remember his big feet kept slapping on my feet, and I definitely wasn't laughing. I ended up locking myself in the loo downstairs to get away from him, only to have him start tapping on the door. I tell you, the film It had nothing on this clown.
My worst phobia: Sharks (or more specifically Great White sharks) (selachophobia)
This stems from my twin sister insisting we watch Jaws before going swimming, combined with her telling me 'the shark's gone, you can look now', only for me to drop the cushion I was holding and see Jaws still gnawing away at someone's leg. This phobia is so bad I can't even look at a picture of a Great White in attack mode without shrieking. To try to make a step forward and because I couldn't bring myself to look at a picture of a real shark, I've drawn one, which you can see below. My old A Level art teachers would be so proud.*
* clearly I did textiles and not painting/drawing.
This isn't we-won-a-prize week, but we did win another prize. And seeing as this one was on the telly, it seems churlish not to give you a blow by blow account, almost as if you'd watched it on the box:
The show begins. It's on prime time ITV, just like Coronation Street and Heartbeat. Proper telly.
Here's Gordon. He'll be presenting the prize for 'Business Achievement'.
"Could it be us?" Adam wonders. Jon and Richard say nothing and smile, whilst the women behind them fall asleep.
"Blimey," says Adam, "we've won." Jon is excited and quickly looks down to check that his shoes are on the right feet.
"Thank you Gordon" says Jon. "And good luck with the new job."
"I knew we shouldn't have let him collect the prize," think Jon and Richard.
Rubbish captions aside, we were very surprised and extrememly chuffed to win. As Adam said in his acceptance speech, "I'd just like to thank my hairdresser" we couldn't have done it without the people who drink our drinks. Without you, we'd be a useless business. So thank you, again. We've got a lot to be grateful for.
We just won a special new prize. Now, as you know, not only do we like to buy the best tasting fruit, but we also try to buy it from farms which look after both the environment and their workers. To help us do that, we work with the Rainforest Alliance, an international non-profit organisation that protects ecosystems and the people and wildlife that live within them.
Last week it was the Rainforest Alliance's 20th birthday, and at the celebrations we were lucky enough to receive their Green Globe Award for businesses that "demonstrate an extraordinary commitment to furthering sustainability by integrating environmental and social sustainability into their work."
They only gave out three such prizes worldwide, so we were honoured to win. We promise to carry on being good and doing good, even if Rich and Adam did look like scruffy b*ggers when picking up the prize.
(l-r Patrick Swayze, Gareth Gates, James Bond)
We'd also like to take this opportunity to introduce you to Carlos Vega, the new Fruit Supply Coordinator with the Rainforest Alliance (we helped provide the funding for his role). Carlos will be helping us buy more Rainforest Alliance certified fruit, including pineapple, orange, acai and acerola.
He's Costa Rican, loves laptops with big screens, and enjoys a double can of beer before he goes to bed. He knows the fruit industry inside out and is going to be invaluable to us in our quest for more certified fruit.
We'd like to tell you about our favourite Elvis impersonator. He rings the banana phone every Thursday or Friday afternoon and sings to us.
He loves our smoothies (cranberries and raspberries is his favourite) and his website is here. Thank you Elvis.
Our friends at howies are having a sample sale in Brick Lane in London this w/e along with lots of other eco brands like People Tree.
As well as some great bargains and fab designs, there's also free Fair Trade coffee and chocolate on hand incase you need a little rest from all that shopping.
It was pretty frantic when we dropped in but Ade, Poppy and their friends were all on hand to make sure the sales frenzy was an enjoyable experience; have a look for yourself here
The sale is on till Sunday, so if you're in the area and fancy popping along, here are the details:
18.05.07 Friday 10 am - 8pm
19.05.07 Saturday 10am - 7pm
20.05.07 Sunday 11am - 5pm
Studio 95, 95, Brick Lane, London, E1 6QL (opposite 93 Feet East on Brick Lane)
Don't forget to take your own carrier bag and form an ordely queue.
We've just finished writing and artworking a whole heap of new labels. They're stuck up on the wall for all to see.
Here's one to read now. You'll have to wait a week or two for the rest of them to start appearing on the shelves.
Magic Breakfast is a charity that was set up four years ago to supply free, healthy food to kids in schools. Currently one in four children in UK turns up to school without eating anything in the morning, so they are too hungry to learn. But Magic Breakfast are really doing their bit. Last year they fed nutritious breakfasts to 250,000 school children, which is pretty impressive. Back in April, we had a few spare drinks here at Fruit Towers, so we gave Magic Breakfast a call to ask if they'd like them. The next day, children in 17 primary schools across London had one of our breakfast thickies in their hands first thing in the morning. Since then, we've had a steady intake of thank you letters into Fruit Towers from the various schools. It gives us a bit of a warm feeling inside.
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