retailer of the month

Every month, we choose one of the lovely places that sells our drinks to be our 'Retailer of the Month' and award them a posh certificate and other treats for hard work, great service and tidy hair.

This month's winners were Celeste and the good folk at the Queen Margaret Union Shop on the University of Glasgow campus.

They have their own shop mascot called Alphonso (pictured bottom left) and are currently doing a roaring trade in Beef Roysters and Chocolate Orange bars.

Part of their prize included a morning's hard graft from the dashing Colin. As well as sampling our drinks to the students, he also helped put out the cereal bars, restack the water and made a beautiful display of stationery items. He's good like that.

Make sure you pop in and say hello next time you're wandering round Glasgow Uni.

And if you'd like to nominate somewhere that sells our drinks in a particularly fine way, then please drop a quick email to Mike J and let us know why they're so very good.

buy one, get one tree

So here’s something interesting. We’re doing something with Starbucks at the moment that means you’ll see little neck tags on our bottles in their stores. On each neck tag are instructions that tell you how to register online for a tree to be planted – we sort out the tree planting bit, so all you have to do is register.

Of course, there are plenty of good reasons to plant trees. They provide homes for woodpeckers. They protect you from hailstones. And some of them have good strong bark that you can make shoes from if you're trapped in the wilderness and you lose your boots (maybe). Check out some more smart facts about why we’re planting trees and have a look at the tree-o-meter - I think we just passed 1000 trees.

super stockist

A while ago, we ran a competition for the nice people who stock our drinks to find our very own super stockist. They had to write and tell us 3 reasons why they thought they were super.

The winner was Dominic of Mother Earth in Stoke Newington. Here he is in front of his shop.

Dominic's reasons for being a super stockist were:

1. Mother Earth is a small, independent and happy shop.

2. We leave 'real food' to the marketing people and just sell what's good.

3. In fact, that might be our new motto: Super Happy Good Food.

Dominic has also just become the proud dad of Méabh and loves chatting about her.

It's a great little place, so if you're in the area and in need of some excellent food or just want to see how little Méabh is doing, make sure you stop by and say hello.

Super hero cape. Check. Super smoothies. Check. Ability to leap between tall buildings. Pending.

helping out at whole foods

Daisy has worked at innocent for years - she was here right at the beginning. This week she went down to help some other people who are just beginning. Whole Foods are a chain of US supermarkets that have just opened their first big store in London. They've been really busy since they opened last week, so a few of us are going over there this week to do a shift and help out. Here's what Daisy said about working there:

"If you havent been down to the new Wholefoods store in Kensington yet, you definitely need to, it's amazing. So much delicious stuff under one room you'll be there for hours. Yesterday afternoon I went and helped out (it sounds like they've been pretty busy since the grand opening last week and we figured they'd be grateful for a few extra pair of hands this week). I rolled up my sleeves and stocked the shelves. It was pretty hard work carrying boxes up and down stairs all afternoon but good for my biceps no doubt. And the team were great and really looked after me (thanks Kim). Plus I got a smart badge with my name on and at the end of the day went home with the biggest chocolate brownie you've ever seen."

"I wish I'd worn my heels"

Another great thing about Whole Foods is that we've invented some recipes for them to make at their juice bar. 10% of all proceeds from our recipes will go to the innocent foundation, so if you're passing the store, pop in and try one.

random acts of kindness

Everyday at innocent we look forward to opening up the [email protected] inbox. It's always full of great stuff you send us and inspiring stories. Here's just one story we received on Friday...

Hi There

Today I was walking down Strand Street and popped into Starbucks, looking for something to drink. My eyes wandered across some Innocent Smoothie products and landed on a Smoothie of the Month drink, which was made of passion fruit and lychees.

I thought that this smoothie looked interesting and decided to give it a try. I arrived at the till and was ready to pay for my chosen drink, when a notice was shown to me, which stated that I couldn't use my debit card.

I had no cash on me either and so was about to return my drink, when a fellow customer stopped me.

This lovely lady standing behind me (who was wearing a very vibrant shade of red lipstick) offered to pay for my drink. At first I was shocked (not believing what I was hearing, for it had never happened to me before) but then very grateful, after realizing that she was serious.

And so to this lovely lady, I would like to say a very big THANK YOU!

I commend her greatly, for the warmth and generosity of heart, which she showed towards me.

Olivia

Thanx :)

If you know the lady in vibrant red lipstick please let her know that Olivia sends a very big thank you from us for her kindness that day. If you fancy trying a random act of kindness yourself then this book is a great place to find some inspiration.

Go on, make somebody's day.

o'er the border

This week our crack sales team (Ed, Vic, Ginger Sarah & Linds) have headed to the top of the country (which is a looooong way in a grassy van) to visit our Scottish stockists.

our vans in Scotland

Ginger Sarah and Linds

We've met lots of lovely people along the way.

Colin at The Globe - Henderson Row, Edinburgh

Janet Halliday at Xanders - Lothian Road, Edinburgh

Blade (that's the name of this particular grassy van) in Blackpool - check The Big One out in the background.

St Andrews Castle.

And our favourite Scottish hairdressers.

More news on Friday...

going east

A nice woman called Sharon Fong dropped by Fruit Towers today, on behalf of our friends at Camp 5 in Kuala Lumpur. She's flying back to Malaysia today, laden with our kids smoothies.

Camp 5 is Asia's largest indoor climbing centre, and the people there like our drinks. So whenever they're over here, they pop in and get some to take back to the east with them. Serene, who runs Camp 5, has promised to send us "...some pix of 'innocent' faces in Camp 5, including hopefully one of a monk having an innocent as well. No promises but we will try."

Looking forward to it.

our amigos in the north

Here's Vic. Sometimes she dances on tables, but she's more often to be found singing the praises of our northern stockists. This week Vic wants us to alert you to the fact that Bar Burrito in Manchester recently won best newcomer at the Manchester Food & Drink awards. Vic says that "they were pretty chuffed with themselves and so they should be."

We doff our sombreros to them, for the award and for the fact that they sell our drinks and keep Vic busy.

special prize

We'd like to say well done to the folks at Moluka Coffee, who were recently awarded a Heartbeat award from Stratford upon Avon district council for their healthy food and drink options. In the email they sent us, they went on to say that "one of the main contributors to winning this award were your smoothies and juicy waters (we don't half sell a lot of 'em)."

Glad we could help.

Ben the manager receives the award from Mr T a local councillor

oh manchester, so much to answer for

Viktor (we think it's spelled with a 'k') is one of our favourite people. He's the Zen master of Polish deli owners. He's an expert baker. A fifteen minute conversation with Viktor leaves one feeling enlightened, slightly confused yet ultimately at peace with the world. He's a surreal gentleman with quality dough-based products on his mind.

Viktor's shop is called Barbakan and it's in Chorlton-cum-Hardy in Manchester. We've been selling our drinks there for about seven years (it was one of the first places outside London to sell them). And we're very pleased to offer Viktor and friends our congratulations for being named the UK's Best Continental Deli.

Read more about Barbakan's triumphs here, and if you're in Manchester on 6th-7th October, we'll be at the Food and Drink Festival in Albert Square.