hat of the week: something wicked this way comes

If you go down to fruit towers today, you're sure to get a big surprise...

Things are getting spooky around here, the pumpkin soup is coming out, and magnets even glow in the dark. In keeping with the season, we bring you a halloween special hat of the week.

Would you rather be treated to pumpkin pie, or get tricked by Frankenstein's Monster? To place your vote, go to our facebook and "like" which photo you prefer.

Last week showed us that mittens beat scarves. And that's a knitted fact.

cucumber and marmite

When feeling a bit peckish, Clemmie prepares herself a nice plate of cucumber and Marmite. We must admit, it seemed like a funny combination, but after giving it a try we changed our minds.

Clemmie prepares her cucumber

She gets some Marmite

Puts a big dollop on the side of her plate

And drizzles it all over her cucumber slices

Give it a try, and let us know what you think.

the big knit hat tag game needs you

We'll be running our hat tag game again this year, whereby we ask you take pictures using our little hats, and upload them via Facebook. But what sort of pictures? Pictures where you hold the hat between your camera and your subject, to make the little hat seem like a big hat (see below). Kind of like what they did in Lord of the Rings, but with hats, not Sir Ian McKellen and that hobbit.

 

To help get the game started, we need some volunteers we can send a little kit to, to get the game started*.

Hats will be in store from 2nd November in Sainsbury's and 9th November in Boots.

*subject to availability, we only have 3,000 kits to give away

the 2011 innocent AGM (a grown up meeting) at fruit towers

A few weeks ago we held our AGM (a grown up meeting) at fruit towers, here's a short film of the day.

national apples

Today is National Apple Day

So go and celebrate by eating one

conversations on the coast

Back in June 2009, you might remember our friend Nick Hand got on his bike and spent 3 months pedalling over 6000 miles round the coast of the British Isles.

On the way, he interviewed all sorts of artists and craftspeople about their work, took their photographs and made little soundscape videos of them as part of his project, Slowcoast.

From to cheese makers, boat builders through to A list Hollywood actors (clue: she was the pasty one with the big carriage in the Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) and a stickmaker called Bill, Nick met all sorts on his travels.

We kept him fuelled with smoothies and veg pots and lots of you sent him top places to go for cake

Well, Nick has now published a beautiful book filled with brilliant photos and stories of the folk he met called Conversations on the Coast and he's very kindly given us a copy to give away.

All you have to do to win it is tell us the best cake you'd offer Nick if he cycled up to your door and Nick will pick his favourite next week.

fruity freaks halloween competition

With Halloween just around the corner, we're calling on kids across the land to delve into the darkest hollows of their imaginations (and vegetable drawers) to create their very own fruit and veg monster.

The first 1,000 spooky creations we receive will win a special set of limited edition Halloween number magnets (0-9) all of which glow-in-the-dark (and look spookily good next to our alphabet ones, which are in our kids smoothies right now)

Fancy getting involved?

Here's how to play 

1. Cut, carve and create your fruity freak or vegetable monster from the weirdest looking fruit and veg you can find. Artichoke arms, broccoli bodies, celery claws - anything goes. Just make sure you get a grownup to help you with any sharp knives.

2. Give it a ghoulish name, spelling it out with your innocent magnets

3. The post a picture of your scary monster in our Flickr gallery. The first 1000 entries will win a special spooky set of limited edition glow-in-the-dark number magnets

 

4. And don't forget to clear up the mess - or the ghosts won't be pleased. Why not use the leftover fruit to make a smoothie or whip up the veg bits into a tasty soup?

Find out about our Fruity Freaks competition right here 

our friends at fareshare

Over the past few weeks we've been turning perfectly good fruit that would have otherwise gone to waste into smoothies at a local school, and we've been helped along the way by FareShare who've been delivering the fruit to East Sheen Primary School each and every week.

FareShare are a national UK charity supporting communities to relieve food poverty, and our Lou popped down to their depot at Park Royal the other week to see just what goes on in an average day.

Here she met Daniel, the depot boss (the chap on the left), and David, a nice man who works there.

As well as promoting the message that ‘No Good Food Should Be Wasted’ and providing training and education in safe food preparation and nutrition through their Eat Well Live Well programme, FareShare get good quality surplus product from the food and drink industry to people who really need it. In 2010/11, the food redistributed by FareShare contributed towards more than 8.6 million meals. That's a lot of food.

Here's where the goods arrive





Pineapples and oranges like these are perfect for turning into smoothies



Pointing at things in crates is par for the course when you work in a warehouse



David checks off the day's orders to make sure everything's going to the right place.

To find out a bit more about what we're up to and watch a video of our Rich on a bike-powered blender head here http://www.innocentdrinks.co.uk/tastenotwaste/ (if you're a bit short of time, skip straight to 1:20 to see the man himself in action).

purplexing stuff

We were in a meeting with Joe this morning and we noticed a theme.

Can you guess what it is yet?

As it's starting to feel like winter is definitely on the way, we thought it time to share some real winter warmers. And so we bring you scarf versus mittens. Or are you more of a snood fan? Good, we didn't think so. Scarf versus mittens it is then. The choice is yours. Just go here, and "Like" whichever photo you prefer to cast your vote.

It's mitten time.

Scarf-o-rama

And last week was a landslide of Disney's Dwarves over the GB Olympic entry. Who knew that a "hi-ho" or two can beat 5 gold medallists?