innocent drinks our drinks us news family bored? press careers
 
daily thoughts
weekly news

the innocent village fete

our new smoothie of the month

visit our FaceBook page

pop a picture on our pinboard

our ethics
daily thoughts

This is what's on our mind today.
If you fancy getting a weekly digest in your inbox, join the family here.

July 25, 2008

entrepreneurial cooking

Dsc06103

Recently I was on a roadtrip in Germany and stayed in the Ghotel in Frankfurt. I faced the challenge of cooking dinner with a hob, kettle and coffee maker at my disposal, but no pans.

I was quite pleased that the pasta worked out so well and that the outcome looked so appetising.

Dsc06105_2

It reminded me of a chat I once had some friends over a pint in the pub. There was a lot of egg talk - frying one with an iron, poaching in the bath or the age-old boiling in a kettle. Simon came up with my favourite “toasties in the trouser press: cheese; cheese and beans; anything goes really”

By our Gemma, out in Germany.

July 23, 2008

angus and julia stone

the innocent village fete

They're playing at our village fete in ten days time and they even wrote a song about a mango tree. Very considerate. Nice video too.

July 22, 2008

mystery veg

the innocent village fete

We like vegetables. So we’re very excited to have the people from Riverford come along to our fete this year. What they don’t know about veg isn’t worth the forking manure, and we consider them to be a key partner in our quest to help people eat slightly fewer sausage rolls and a bit more fruit and veg.

As part of this quest, Riverford would like you to bring your strangely shaped veg to our fete. Wonky carrots, bulbous onions and courgettes that look like the Dalai Lama – all are welcome. The best ones will win a prize and be shown off in the Riverford tent. Or you can just post a photo of your weird veg here.

Also, we have a small competition for you. Just name the vegetables below (proper Latin names please, as well as their everyday names) and you can win one of three fancy boxes of Riverford fruit and veg. Post your answers as a comment, along with a tie-breaker – a maximum of 15 words completing the following phrase - "I love wonky veg because............"

Good luck (deadline is the end of this Friday 25th July).

Mystery veg 1

Riverford6540


Mystery veg 2

Riverford_24568

bring a book, swap a book

the innocent village fete

We're having a new area at our fete this year, all about words, books and theatre. Along with live performance art, poetry slamming, Giant Boggle and storytelling, our friends at 4th Estate are also bringing along their book tombola.

Tombola
The book tombola may not look like this in real life.

Instead of buying a ticket and praying to bag the bottle of gin over the collector’s set of King Charles Spaniel porcelain plates, you just need to bring an old book along to the fete. You then get to swap it for another book from the tombola. It might be better, it might not, but one thing’s for sure – you won’t be going home with a tin of beans or any commemorative canine crockery.

So please bring a book (or two) if you're coming to our fete.

July 21, 2008

a thought for monday

Dsc07120

July 16, 2008

holiday reading

If you're stuck for ideas on what reading matter to take on holiday with you this summer, then fret no more - the folk of Fruit Towers are here to help with a few well chosen book recommendations.

First up is Fordy, who has been engrossed in The Raw Shark Texts by Steven Hall.

Gripping

According to the Iron Man himself, this book is 'brilliantly confusing, all about a man being chased by a conceptual shark, created by language, words and thoughts. I could not put it down.'

Meanwhile over in Hammock Corner, Mav is hooked on Jupiter's Travels by Ted Simon. Ted spent four years riding his motorbike around the world in the 1970s and met loads of fascinating people along the way.

Easy_reading

It's a right good read apparently.

The lovely Sarah loved A Walk to Remember by Nicholas Sparks so much that she keeps re-reading it whilst walking to work.

Lady_in_pink

All that tripping up is worth it though as, according to Sarah, this book 'made me cry big, fat, happy tears, transported me away from the real world and made me daydream about romantical things.'

And finally, Dan is learning how to be the coolest dad on the block by reading Be the Coolest Dad on the Block by Simon Rose and Steve Caplin.

Daddy_cool_2

It contains all sort of useful information to impress the nippers, including why your fingers go wrinkly in the bath, how to build an anti-gravity escalator and how to make noises like a pigeon.

If you've just finished a right riveting read and fancy recommending it to all those in need of some riveting, just let us know your top tips for summer reading below.

is sasquatch real?

Dsc06975

When I was younger I firmly believed in the existence of Sasquatch, and the Yeti too. But as I got older, I stopped believing. Recently, whilst up late at night, I chanced upon an episode of Arthur C Clarke's Mysterious World and relived the legendary Patterson-Gimlin footage.

I now believe again. Sasquatch is real.

And now back to the mysterious world of whole crushed fruit in a bottle.

July 11, 2008

the bananaphone

If I had to choose one question I've been asked the most since working at innocent, it would have to be "Is there really a bananaphone?" The simple answer is yes. And although it's technically not the phone we speak into, it's what rings out to the whole of Fruit Towers. And it is shaped like a banana. In fact, this is what it looks like.

Bananaphone1_2

If novelty phones are your thing, you can see more here

Lots of people do ring us for a chat, and you get to speak to a real, live person too (as long as it's during office hours, we haven't quite reached a 24 hour hotline just yet).  If you would like to get in touch, the number is on the bottle.

There's even a song all about it, by a nice man called Raffi. If you like your songs fairly repetitive, you'll love this one. You can listen and indeed watch a slightly strange video with a man who isn't Raffi above.

Bananaphone_2

The sad news is, however, when we were having a bit of a move around in the office, the bananaphone was put somewhere "safe." You know, like the safe place you put your Bucks Fizz limited edition record to, and then can never remember where that safe place was. It's safe, but so safe you can't find it. We'll keep hunting and fingers crossed, we'll find it again.

July 10, 2008

summer in the park

Thank you Ted for last week’s blog about the innocent band. It got me thinking that the Madchester innocent music club has been a wee bit quiet of late. To make up for it, I’ll be sampling smoothies at Summer in the Park in Manchester this weekend. I’m really excited as the event combines my favourite things; music and food and drink. I’m even told there will be a few beards, delightful.

music
Check out the brilliant line up which includes Manchester favourites I am Kloot and The Earlies, and a couple of personal favourites of mine Stephen Fretwell and Liam Frost. I’m also looking forward to catching Lucy and the Caterpillar (pictured here, isn’t she cute?).

1

food and drink
On the food front, the region’s best producers will be making an appearance and there will be food from Manchester’s yummiest restaurants such as Marmalade. Visit Cup, a lovely new addition to Manchester’s Northern Quarter, if you want to quaff one of our smoothies. Or if you fancy a spot of tea and cake you can try the coolest brew in town, Mr Scruff’s Make us a Brew.

beards
2

The Travelling Band, winners of the Glastonbury New Talent 2008, will be making an appearance too.

So what are you waiting for? Bagsy your ticket and we’ll see you there. Just make sure you pop over to the innocent stand to say hello.

By Vic.

July 09, 2008

last night's telly - gordon ramsay's F word

If you were watching Gordon Ramsay knocking up a vegetable curry last night (Channel 4, 9-10pm), you may also have noticed Janet Street-Porter talking about smoothies. She even made some alarming noises about smoothies not being that good for you, her argument being that if you drink too many smoothies you might end up with a big bottom.

She was talking about the fact that people might not realise how much sugar was in a smoothie. Our answer would be that it's the same amount of sugar you'd find in the equivalent amount of fruit. We've done lots of research and have worked out that the two portions of fruit in our drinks have exactly the same amount of sugar in them as if you were to eat two portions of fruit. Unsurprising really, seeing as all we do is squash lots of fruit into bottles.

Graph

Eating more fruit and veg is the second best thing you can do for your health after quitting smoking (I think we've said this before, but it's always worth repeating), so it seems slightly irresponsible to us to scare people away from getting fruit in whatever form they choose. Not enough people eat their five a day as it is, and seeing as our smoothies are made from nothing but 100% fruit, they therefore contain good things that fruit itself contains – lots of amazing fibre, vitamins, minerals, phytoprotectants and the sugar that occurs naturally within fruit.

Our smoothies are designed to be part of a healthy balanced diet (not necessarily an added extra on top of what you normally eat). So by all means substitute a smoothie for unhealthy snacks like chocolate bars, and don't get too spooked by Janet's big bottom scenario.

Sirmixalot
Sir MixaLot's big bottom scenario.

July 08, 2008

it's good to talk

We'd like to introduce you to Fergus and Vish.  They're our longest ever bananaphone callers (that's over a period of time as opposed to a really long phone call) and have been chatting to us since 2004.  They travelled all the way from Newcastle to see us, albeit as part of an action-packed weekend, but they managed to fit in a visit, and have a natter over some tea, cake and smoothies.

Vish_fergus_006

Fergus and Vish model this season's smoothie fashions. 

craftsmanship

Simon has just come back from his honeymoon in Italy.

While out in Assisi, he treated himself to his very own pair of handmade Italian shoes.

Profile

The craftsmanship is amazing.

July 07, 2008

a brand new career

We've just finished updating the brand spanking new careers at innocent bit of this website. It seemed to be a sensible thing to do as the jobs pages always seem to be the most popular part of the site (other than the information on our drinks naturally).

Careers_home1

We take careers stuff very seriously over here, so the new section contains a lot more in depth information on how we believe in doing business where you can watch a video of Rich talking turkey. Plus a section on life at innocent and your potential new career.

Oh, and all of the very latest career opportunities both in the UK and internationally (we update these pages very regularly so you can be sure all the roles you see are still available). We've even made it a lot easier to apply with a new online application form.

Why not have a look and see if there's anything that catches your eye. If not there might be something you could forward to a friend, or a friend of a friend. Or your second cousin Eddy, who's got a lot of get up and go and is pretty hot with all things career like.

read-y steady book

Oliver_jeffers

Illustration by Oliver Jeffers

There's nothing like settling down and having a good old read, which is quite apt as 2008 is the National Year of Reading, and this week, people all over Wales will be giving books out as part of their national Give a Book Week.  We don't reckon it matters if you're in Wales or not, so give a thought to treating your loved ones to a new book.  If you're looking for something for kids, anything by Oliver Jeffers is always a hit, even big kids like me enjoy them.  If you like your books a little weird, I Lick My Cheese, is also a good buy.  Or simply share your latest book with your mates, and make them promise not to fold the pages down.  Feel free to share any page-turners you've read recently with us below.

July 04, 2008

friday nonsense

Sammy Stephens, the man behind Flea Market Montgomery, is back with a little more magic. What a guy.

If you find yourself in a disco situation this weekend, perhaps you should give it a bit of Flea Market.

doodle things and win stuff winners

We ran a little competition in our weekly email newsletter a couple of weeks ago to doodle on the label of June's smoothie of the month. Our Ben's just had a look over all the entries (you can see them all here) and decided on his three favourites. Which in no particular order are...

2624614694_cf1f29e56a
jomrpicklemolloy "Everyone went ‘ooo’ at this one. we think the birds make it, and the grass skirt."

2623934825_a55ec146d6
sueappleton60's not so innocent desert island "Lots of brownie points here for pre-sketching in pencil. Preparation."

2621633764_a58c164b59
and creative_one "Nice use of felt tips, and we like milky joe too."


A box of smoothies goes to each of the winners. Keep an eye on your inbox for even more chances to win stuff.

July 03, 2008

tetra tent

Along with a few other thousand revellers, our Lucie went along to Glastonbury last weekend for a spot of festival living, falafel munching and Jay Z appreciating.

While she was there, she spotted this brilliant little tent/igloo structure in the Green Fields

Tetrapak_tent

It's made completely from used tetra cartons and some very bendy twigs.

On closer inspection, Lucie discovered a couple of rather familiar looking panels inside

Nice_panel

Hats off to whoever made this ingenious recycled tetra tent. We salute you.

mama five goats

Farmafrica
Mama Five Goats holding Malith.

Every now and again we like to give you an on the ground update from our innocent foundation partners. Some of you may already know that 10% of innocent's profits go to charity each year, primarily to the innocent foundation, but it's individual stories like this one which really remind us of why we do this. The foundation is currently supporting work in South Sudan through FARM-Africa. The people of Sudan have had it really rough through being displaced through conflict, but they're working hard to rebuild their lives and reduce their reliance on food aid.

Amou Mariec Aweer (above) lost her husband in the conflict and her cows and goats were raided by her neighbours. She returned to her home village with nothing, but in 2007 she received training and 5 goats from her local FARM-Africa team. Now she has a flock of 8 goats and in time she will return 5 to the project to re-stock other families. She is now known as Mama Five Goats and this says it all:

“Now people are respecting me in their meetings because I also have goats like them. They no longer call me a poor woman. My life has changed, I am a woman now”.

Her newest goat kid is called Malith, which means spotted colour in Dinka, as animals are often named according to their colour. We wish luck to Mama Five Goats and all her goats.

By Linda, our innocent foundation guardian

July 02, 2008

cheese club and bronte

P1060777

Our Bronte (standing, far right) popped around yesterday to help us enjoy a Scandinavian themed cheese club. She's a bit of an expert on all things Scandinavian, being from Denmark herself, and also starting her very own Scandinavian Kitchen last year.

You can read all about yesterday's Scandinavian cheese club and the cheeses Bronte brought along for us on her own blog here.

put up posters and win stuff

the innocent village fete

2625169238_3954c1788a

We're hoping that you might be able to help spread the word about our village fete this summer in your local neighbourhood or place of work. All you need to do is download this post, print it out and stick it up somewhere where lots of people might see it.

Then you can take a photo of it and enter it into our flickr competition if you like. There'll be prizes for best placed poster, the strangest placed poster and the place where the most people are likely to see it.

It's all about keeping it local these days.


July 01, 2008

spreadable biscuits anyone?

A very kind drinker brought us a present last week when they popped into Fruit Towers

Biscuit_spread

Speculoos is the spreadable version of those little biscuits you get with your coffee in posh coffee shops.

Speculaas

Those little biscuits are techincally known as speculaas and are a traditionally eaten on 5th December in Belgium and the Netherlands to celebrate St. Nicholas' Eve.

Seeing as biscuits last about 3 minutes in our kitchen, the biscuit spread has gone down a storm and has overtaken chocolate spread as the choice of topping for 3:30pm toast munchies.

Toast_munchies 

Alternatively, it tastes just as good straight from the jar.

Biscuit_love_002

Cup of tea optional.

punctures made easy

Yesterday, Fordy taught me how to fix a puncture properly and enlightened me as to how far puncture repair kits have advanced since I last got someone else to fix my bike.

No more glue, funny little rubber circles or scrubby bits of chalk.

Just a postage stamp sized patch that you peel off and stick over the offending hole.

Super_patch

Small enough to fit in your pocket yet strong enough to stop that air escaping from your tyres.

Magic stuff.

June 30, 2008

young enterprise finalists

Laura from Sharnbrook Upper School got in contact to let us know that the Young Enterprise Group she's part of have made it through to the Young Enterprise National Finals with their company, Green Elephant.

Green_elephant

They've published a little book for children, which is all about encouraging them to eat more healthily.

Olliefc

The book has some great healthy recipes in there and some nice illustrations, drawn by Michael who's also in the group.

The finals are today so fingers crossed for Green Elephant and Ollie the mouse coming up trumps.

same same but different

Here's a quick spot the difference for you

Spot_the_difference

Before you start writing in about the variation in shading, the bottle shadow or the hidden netball, there's actually only one difference, which all eagle eyed Dutch speakers will have clocked straightaway - namely, that our recipe book is now available in Dutch.

Hot off the press, it will make a lovely present for all your Dutch friends, neighbours, colleagues and football coaches and you can get it here, here, here, here and here.

please say hello to the innocent band

the innocent village fete

Here's a very sneak preview of the innocent band who played for us here at Fruit Towers last Thursday lunch time. They'll be playing again at our village fete on both the Saturday and Sunday so keep your eye out for them on the programme.

Every single member works here Monday to Friday, 9am-6pm, so we're quite proud that they've managed to pull together a fully fledged 9 piece band in such a short space of time. In the blurry distance, you can probably just about make out Caroline, Cass, Ceri and Vic on vocals, Duncan on drums, Jamie M and Tim S on trombone and trumpet respectively, Ruvan on guitar, Malinna on bass and Ben T working his magic on the piano. Oh and there's a tambourine that gets passed around as well. We can't forget the tambourine.

And here's a chicken with his eye on some apples.

Dsc02944

Unfortunately, he's already been booked for another engagement this summer.

subscribe to this blog's feed

recent comments

Teresa Hill on mystery veg
Kirstie Simpson on mystery veg
Sarah on mystery veg
Sue on a thought for monday
Shelley Mason on mystery veg
Heather Knotts on mystery veg
Charlotte on mystery veg
Suti on catch them if you can
Marion Anslow on mystery veg
Janet on mystery veg



monthly archive
july
june
may
april
march
february
january
december
november
october
september
august
july
june
may
april
march
february
january
december
november
october
september
august
july
june



powered by typepad

 
©2008 innocent drinks

|

sitemap

|

contact us

|

innocent drinks france

|

innocent drinks netherlands

|

innocent drinks denmark

|

innocent drinks belgium

|

innocent drinks sweden

|

innocent drinks germany

|

innocent kids

|

innocent village fete

|

innocent foundation