thank you to you

We're ten years and one day old today. So we just wanted to take this opportunity to say thank you for helping us to get here. Thank you to you. Thank you to all of the people who have ever drunk one of our smoothies, thickies or orange juice. Thank you to everyone who has ever eaten a veg pot. Thank you to everyone thinking of trying our new squeezies and all the other fancy new stuff we'll be inventing in the future. Thanks to the farmers and fruit growers. Suppliers and manufacturers. Van drivers and shopkeepers. Journalists, bloggers, rate and reviewers and commentators. But thank you to you, most of all you.

Without you, we’d just have an expensive fruit-crushing hobby.

ten today

Here are those pictures from our tenth birthday lunch that we promised you earlier. The cake was a particular highlight.

We've grown one whole new row of tables since our eighth birthday lunch.

A truly magnificent example of a cake with a carrot on top.

Adam tells the story of that time Rich crashed a grassy van.

Ingredients for a good birthday lunch: flowers, humus, raffle tickets and our new book. In that order.

The cake gets distributed to a kind of orderly queue.

And no party would be complete without an official appearance from the innocent band.

today's the day

We're 10 years old today. Double figures.

More 10th birthday news later.

squeeze me

Adults can steal the show sometimes. They tend to get to enjoy all the best shiny new cars, big budget Hollywood films and fine French wines. So we thought we'd concentrate on making something great for small people this time. We've called them pure fruit squeezies. 100% pure crushed fruit. In a squeezable tube. For small people.

Perfect for lunch boxes. And making adults jealous.

cap-ital stuff

You might have noticed the caps on our big cartons have changed.

 

A small detail maybe, but it's the small things that make a difference.

Our old caps used to have this ring pull thingy which you had to pull off to pour your smoothie out. Since our smoothies need a good shake first, that sometimes resulted in stuff getting splashed when you pulled the seal off. Shoes, kitchens, the occasional household pet.

We’ve been working hard to sort it out and after 9 months of cap fiddling, we’ve finally pulled it off.  No more splash back, expensive dry cleaning bills or trips to the dog groomers. No more ring pulls. So our new caps mean you can now unscrew and pour straight away.

They’ve been specially designed to make sure your smoothie stays just as fresh as always. And to cap it all off, by switching to these new caps, we’ll also be saving 20 tonnes of plastic a year. Top marks indeed.

the bananas have finally split...

We've been working on this one for a while now, and you've been requesting it via emails, phone calls and letters for even longer. Our first ever banana free (and green) smoothie. Now you'd probably think making a banana-free smoothie would be easy. Just don't put any bananas into the blender. But it’s not that straightforward. Mainly because bananas are to smoothies what flour is to cake. Take them away and you've just got floppy smoothies.

But we've finally got there. After lots of experimenting in the kitchen and a taste test at last years village fete we discovered that the secret was in getting just the right mix of kiwis, and apples, and limes.

So now we've ticked that one off the list what would you like to see us do next? Just leave your thoughts and ideas here.

an innocent & investment Q&A

After we announced last week that Coca Cola have bought a minority share in our business, lots of you got in touch via our blog, twitter, facebook, email and the banana phone with a whole host of questions - ranging from why we'd done this through to what that means next for innocent.

The things that people were most interested to hear were:

innocent remains a standalone business, and will continue to be led by Adam, Jon and Rich, the three guys that set up innocent. Coke have a minority investment only and are not involved in the running of the business.

We're going to continue to do what we've always done - making natural healthy food and drink, produced sustainably and supporting charities in the countries the fruit comes from.

The money raised is being paid into the business (not to the shareholders) to fund our expansion into Europe and so we can launch more natural healthy products.

But we thought it’d be useful to set up a Q&A section on our blog to answer some of the most commonly asked questions you’ve been asking by putting them to Rich (one of our founders) and filming his responses.

You can watch them in the little video clips below and as ever, feel free to post your thoughts as comments.

Why did you have to raise funds - couldn't you just have stayed as you are?		Why did you choose Coke as your investor?
How much do Coke now own?		Does this mean that some of the profits from innocent now go to Coke?
Do you really think you are going to be able to influence Coke's thinking?		Who is now running innocent and what will Coke's involvement be?
Isn't this deal against all that you stand for?		Are you now going to change the way you talk and act as a business?

kladdkaka you see it

...and now you don't.

 

Bronte popped in today to bring us some of her amazing kladdkaka (very sticky Swedish chocolate cake).

Bee used work at Fruit Towers, pretty much running the innocent ship, before setting up Scandi Kitchen a couple of years ago, and was as famed for her organising skills as she was her carrot cake, her chilli and chocolate cake - just cake in general really.

Today, the kladdkaka lasted all of about 12 minutes.

 

You've got to be quick in this kitchen.

please say hello to our new british spring greens veg pot

Hello...

Spring. The time of year for lambs, lush green meadows and new romances. Along with spaghetti and anything garlic related however, globe artichokes are probably not the wisest thing to order on a first date. All that fiddly peeling and getting fuzzy leaves stuck in your teeth doesn’t make for sparkling chat. Far simpler (and much more attractive) to just enjoy them in our new british spring greens veg pot instead.

We’ve combined fresh spring greens, brown rice, a dollop of crème fraiche and chargrilled artichokes for a sprightly medley, with no leaf peeling, fuzz faffing, blowing date number 2 hassles whatsoever. Please enjoy.

it's friday

Okay, so technically it's Thursday but since tomorrow is a national holiday, the long weekend officially starts here.

So make a cup of tea, toast a hot cross bun and enjoy some finger popping fun.