Or should we say start, as for our first official bit of news for 2012, we are thrilled to announce that our new juice blends are now in the shops.
You can choose from our delicious apple and raspberry recipe or totally tasty tropical (sorry), depending on whether you need to be transported to a dappled orchard or a desert island.
You can find them in ASDA right now and in other shops very soon (we'll keep you posted as to where and when).
Given that at least one person you know will be on some sort of miserable cabbage maple syrup nothing beginning with C diet right now, why not cheer them up with a bit of sunshine in a carafe?
Or better still, give their eyes and ears a treat courtesy of a shady orange grove and the dulcet tones of Captain Jean Luc Picard.
Or even better still, if you fancy winning yourself a case of our new blends, just tell us your top 3 most ridiculous New Year's resolutions below and the 10 that make us laugh the most will each win a case of our new juice.
We'll pick the winners on Friday 20th January, so get your entries in.
Meantime, to find for your nearest ASDA stockist, just email [email protected]
This competition is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. Congratulations to Katie B, Kieran W, Karen G, Thom B, Yasna, Andi G, Bex, Kerri W, Samantha S and Steven Y. A box 'o' blends winging their way to you very soon.
Put down the apples, step away from the juicer and remove yourself from the kitchen theatre immediately because our apple juice is now available in little 330ml bottles.
You can find them in NISA and McColls stores right now, Starbucks from next week and Sainsbury’s from the start of November.
We’re so giddy with excitement that we’ve got 10 cases to give away.
All you need to do win one is tell us your best apple joke below.
And if you're very lucky, you might even get a signed photo of Janel, our resident opera singer and all round angel
Maybe.
Post your jokes by Monday 10th October and we'll announce the winners here next week.
This competition is now closed. Thanks to everyone who entered. Big congratulations to Stephen P, Christine S, Andrena, Karen, Di, Clive, Rach, Jayne, Sara and Louise. Cases of apple juice winging their way to you very soon.
We're making a new TV advert. The clever ones among you will be able to tell that it features fruit. Using the latest "dropping fruit from a rickety bit of scaffolding" technique, we are hoping to make something beautiful, entertaining and innocent in its nature.
Pete ("the best in the business") is looking after the fruit. He picks it, preens it and sometimes talks to it.
Helen is the director. She's firm but fair, and is guiding us towards sunlit uplands.
And the fruit just keeps rolling. Down chutes, from wires and pretty much every other way you can imagine that fruit could be propelled. We will stop at nothing until we have made fruit do every trick in the book.
Juice carafes come in rather handy for impromptu games of skittles (add water to make things a bit trickier), and the caps are the perfect spot for growing just enough cress to spruce up an egg sarnie.
It also turns out that our kids' smoothie boxes are just the thing for carrying sick ducklings to the vets
And as if that wasn't enough, they make pretty nifty conveyor belts for transporting snacks from one end to the other too.
Thanks to Matt, Laura, Dominic, Emily, Ian, Mrs Barry, Minnie's mum and Craig for the photos and suggestions.
If anyone thinks they can top these, we'd love to hear from you.
Sound the trumpets, hoist the flags, this is a momentous, err, moment. We're welcoming two new carton sizes to the family. We've been making our drinks in 1L cartons for more than 6 years now, and they have served us well. However, the time has come for our 1L cartons to enter retirement.
Whilst we’ll miss them, coming soon to a store near you* are our new 750ml and value 1.25L cartons.
750ml is a good size for those who've always struggled to finish our 1L cartons. 1.25L is a good size for those with many mouths to feed (or one very hungry mouth).
To our 1L cartons, we say thank you for the smoothie storing work you've done. We'll salute you as your cruise liner departs Poole for Antigua. To our 750ml & 1.25L cartons, we say a warm welcome to the family. We know you'll do us proud.
(We added this next bit as a comment below but we thought it was worth adding to the main blog too, in case anybody missed it).
In terms of pricing for our new cartons, we want to be absolutely transparent. Ultimately, it’s up to individual stores what they choose to charge for our drinks, but the RRP** for our new 750ml carton is £2.79, and for our 1.25L carton it is £3.69. This means our 750ml cartons are cheaper per pack, but cost a bit more per ml than our old 1L cartons. Our 1.25L cartons are a higher price per pack, but are the same price per ml as our 1L cartons.
Since we launched our 1L carton in 2004 we have not increased our prices. In that time lots of things have happened which mean it now costs more to make our drinks than it used to (namely, fruit prices have gone up, and we use quite a bit of fruit).
We know that some people will be disappointed by this change, but we hope you can understand that we felt that introducing two new carton sizes at two different prices was the best way to react to the fact that, put simply, fruit is more expensive these days.
* Different stores will launch on different dates from June – August, beginning with Sainsbury’s on 8th June
For many, this will go down as the day when it rained a lot, or as the weekend where they had a particularly tasty croissant for breakfast.
But for me, Sat 19th Feb will be marked as my favourite day at work. Ever.
A few weeks ago, we blogged a post inviting people to come along to a special film makers' workshop here at Fruit Towers. 60 soaked, but surprisingly chirpy, budding film makers came through the doors of the Towers on Sat for a very special workshop with Ben Wheatley - film director, funny man, and chap who made our advert.
With beanbags and biscuits, and a Wizard of Oz style presentation from up on the balcony, Ben shared some of his top tips for film making, ranging from how to use storyboards effectively to the importance of time management in directing.
We'll let you into a secret...the number 1 rule of film directing?
Never, ever sit down.
In the afternoon, our budding film makers were set loose to create their own 30 second mini movie superhero movie, armed with Ben's tips and a no expenses spared* film makers' kit.
*this may not be strictly true
They looked up for the challenge, so we threw in additional angle of artistic opportunity/anguish and gave them each a genre or theme for their mini movie, ranging from slasher horror to circus chic.
They spent a bit of time brainstorming...
...and then the magic started to really happen as the gaffa tape came out, the fishwire was attached, and a selection of Fruit Towers' finest random props were put to excellent use.
The result? 9 truely excellent films watched with lashings of popcorn that had us in stitches.
Check out some of the results, and find out how you can get involved in our mini movies competition here.
Thanks so much to those of you who came down for the day. We'll be smiling about it for a while to come.
To celebrate the launch of our new juice this week (yes, we launched a new juice this week), we had a big juicy breakfast inside Fruit Towers.
There were bagels, salmon, jam, and a fair bit of juice.
To round up the morning and to keep the juices flowing, we had a squeeze-off. The aim of the game was to see who could squeeze enough oranges quickly enough into a carafe to fill it (set to the overture from Carmen). And who do you think won it? One of the big fruits himself.
You may have heard, but we've just launched our brand new orange juice (and apple juice too). To celebrate, we've got 11 breakfast hampers to give away.
We squeeze 11 oranges into every carafe, so we've got 11 overflowing breakfast hampers to give away (we're simple like that). In each hamper you'll find: homemade muffins, crunchy granola, fresh fruit, marmalade (made by our very own Kat E), tasty bread, napkins, limited edition innocent juice glasses, wonderful tea from teapigs.co.uk, along with a thirst-quenchingly large amount of juice. There's plenty to share.
To be in with a chance of winning, just tell us your best orange or apple pun or joke. Our 11 favourites will each get a hamper delivered to their door. Here's a couple to help start the ball rolling:
- two oranges walk into a bar, one says "your round"
- you make me peel like a natural woman
- ooh-aah, juiced a little bit
To enter, click here (entries only open for UK residents - sorry).
Competition closes at midnight Monday 14th February.
If you happen to be swooping by Selfridges in London tomorrow (Thursday 20th January) pop in and pick up your very own limited edition caped superhero smoothie. Find out more here
