Hello, we're innocent
…and we're here to make it easy for
people to do themselves some good (whilst making it taste nice too).
We started innocent in 1999 after
selling our smoothies at a music festival. We put up a big sign asking people
if they thought we should give up our jobs to make smoothies, and put a bin
saying 'Yes' and a bin saying 'No" in front of the stall. Then we got
people to vote with their empties. At the end of the weekend, the 'Yes' bin was
full, so we resigned from our jobs the next day and got cracking.
Since then we've started making veg pots, juices and kids' drinks, in
our quest to make natural, delicious, healthy foods that help people live well
and die old.
the innocent timeline This is where the story is told and old
fashion mistakes are exposed. Click and drag your way along, or just use
the nice arrows. To read a particular story, click on any of the pictures.
1998
Stop talking, start starting…
Rich, Adam and Jon, who had met at university in the early 1990s, go on a snowboarding holiday, during which they decide to stop talking about starting a business and actually start one.
Some bins and
The boys sell their first smoothies from a stall at a music festival in London. A sign above the stall reads “Should we give up our jobs to make these smoothies?” and people are asked to throw their empties into bins marked ‘Yes’ or ‘No’. (‘Yes’ wins.)
The fairly boring bit
They write a business plan. Nobody wants to invest (to be fair, it did look a bit boring, see left). They re-write the plan another 11 times. Every bank, venture capitalist and business angel in London turns them down.
Thank you Mr Pinto
A desperate email is sent to everyone they know, with the subject “Does anyone know anyone rich?” Enter a nice man called Mr Pinto, without whom…
What's in a name?
The business needs a name. It takes nine months to think of one. For a while the brand is known as Fast Tractor. Then Hungry Aphid. Then Nude. Then Naked. Then innocent.
Day one – sell
28th
April 1999, the first day of business. Jon sells the first 3 cases to our local
sandwich bar Out To Lunch (just across the road from where we still have our office today).
Jon then retires from selling.
Tasty drinks, dodgy bottles
Our very first bottles looked like this (a little bit ugly if we’re being honest). There were three launch recipes. Only one remains to this day.
The magic of trade shows
Week 3: Dan turns up at a trade show to help out for the day and is still here now. He also pioneers the backwards t-shirt look. Meanwhile, we get our first big bit of press in the Evening Standard.
Our very first office
The view inside Fruit Towers v1 – a very small room containing some very big computers. Traditions included using cardboard boxes as desks and cracking your head on the support beams every 20 minutes.
Now we are six
The workforce officially doubles to six. Daisy, Brett and Dan get officially involved. The blonde lady doesn’t. (Photo taken upon the occasion of us winning our first entrepreneur’s award – Shell Livewire. We were regional winners but national losers.)
Shake before opening
A hungover Jon drinks a smoothie and shakes the bottle, forgetting that he has already taken the cap off, and thus gets smoothie all over himself. The label instruction ‘Shake before opening (not after)’ is born.
Cow vans on the loose
We launch
thickies - delicious yoghurt drinks with added fruit and other good stuff. We decide that the best way to deliver them is via vans that look like cows. The vans escape but are eventually rounded up.
Overseas expansion
Our first overseas office opens, in Dublin. Well, when we say office, it was Pete’s shed. Very nice shed though.
innocent, aged one
The first annual innocent Nature Weekend takes place in Austria. A chance to commune with the great outdoors. And we also hold our first birthday party at a children’s play centre. Cake was taken.
Round robin gets
We start sending eleven people our weekly webnews. It’s a great success – some of them stay subscribed for week two.
Off to the supermarket
We get a
trial listing of our smoothies in 10 Waitrose stores. Naturally, we go and buy our own
smoothies to make sure they sell. The trial is successful and we go on sale in loads more of their shops.
Moving to the new place
We move into Fruit Towers v2 – a unit on an industrial estate in Shepherd’s Bush. Still not really a tower.
How to go bankrupt, quickly
We give 46%
of all profits to charity and nearly bankrupt the business. Then we start thinking that
we should start a proper, organised charity.
Stop me and drink one
Our empire of impractical transport grows with the addition of Dancing Grass Vans (just press the button for hydraulically activated dancing).
Advertising for beginners
We run our first advertising campaign, entitled “Made by Nature”. We pay for 5 poster sites, outside the head offices of the 5 main supermarkets.
The things that people
A lady called Caroline Nash sends us a tapestry. It’s a bit like the Turin Shroud, but less old.
Our very own place
Our shiny product kitchen opens, ready to invent smoothies. The previous arrangement (doing it in the same place where we made coffee and toast in the morning) ends.
Publish and be damned
The first
innocent recipe book is published, complete with psychedelic monkey.
Who needs carpets?
Fruit Towers v2 is carpeted in Astroturf – a new look is born.
I feel the need for cheese
Cheese club launches with a bang, and some cheese. Adam Balon is voted Life President.
Our intrepid explorers
The first overseas innocent scholarship trip – Shrimp and Mark go to India to learn the secrets of making great chutney, hoping to return and start their own chutney business. They never did.
A new dawn/juice
We launch Really Lovely Juices. They taste great. They look nice. But they fail to set the world alight and don’t last that long. A bit of a shame.
Bigger, faster, waterier
We launch our first big smoothies (750ml bottles) and something called Juicy Water.
A proper knees up
The first of 4 Fruitstocks happens on a hot weekend in August. The sun shines, the people dance, the toilet queue is manageable.
High times in the mountains
The fourth
Nature Weekend happens in the Alps. Amid the bird watching and poetry readings, we find time to balance on each others' shoulders before breakfast every day.
It's OK, we'll let ourselves in
We launch the Home Juicing Guarantee on the side of our OJ bottles - “If you don’t think our orange juice tastes as fresh as can be, we’ll come round to your house and squeeze some for you. Just send us your front door key.” Jess visits a happy family and steals their dog.
Something for the
We invent the wee-ometer. A real conversation starter.
On strong foundations…
The innocent foundation begins, using 10% of our annual profits to do good things with. The best tradition we ever started. So far we have committed €1.5m and directly helped over 330,000 people.
Needles at the ready
People start knitting for Supergran (later to become The Big Knit). Three thousand small hats appear in shops across the land (thank you New Adam).
Hands across the ocean/Channel
Fruit Towers opens for business in Paris and Amsterdam. Sadly, plans for an Acapulco office are shelved.
Brand new bundles of joy
We start selling our smoothies in big one litre cartons. They look impressive and hold up to four times the volume of the smaller 250ml bottles. Our ‘super smoothies’ also hit the shelves. Due to their unbridled power, productivity increases by 650%.
Stay healthy, be lazy
We publish a small book called Stay Healthy, Be Lazy. It includes some exercises you can do on the toilet.
A seat of learning
Our internal business school, the innocent academy, opens for business. The launch venue is a hotel favoured by swingers. What could possibly go wrong?
Especially for small people
Kids get their own smoothies, in a small carton with a straw. We launch them at Brackenbury Primary school (next door to Fruit towers v2).
Downstairs, trout
Fish Towers opens in Manchester, above a fishmonger's. Double herrings all round.
It's freezing
We test out innocent ice cream on unsuspecting Fruitstock attendees. They vote yes, but we say no. (It seem, you know, a bit difficult and that.)
Our very own ad on the telly
Our first TV ad goes on the telly. A DIY job - made in Gunnersbury Park by three people for a very small fee.
We hit a century
The
workforce grows and we become 100 strong. Heather is our fine centurion.
Another year, another book
Our second
recipe book is published and sells very well, bucking our previous publishing
trends.
What's that on Barry's arm?
Barry likes innocent smoothies so Barry gets an innocent tattoo and comes to Fruit Towers on his birthday to show us. It's a free country.
Top pop group in talent contest shock
Scouting For Girls win our Fruitstock talent search. We discovered them you know. (Sorry.)
Up near the Arctic Circle…
Viking Towers opens for business, ruling over all of Scandinavia from their lofty perch in downtown Copenhagen. Perhaps our favourite location yet?
All the fun of the fete
Fruitstock morphs into the innocent village fete, complete with duck herding, ferret racing and nicer toilets.
A very decent package
We finally start making our bottles from 100% recycled plastic. A world first, which makes us proud.
Magic in the middle
European expansion continues into Germany and Austria. Hamburg becomes the site of our smartest office yet, whilst Manfred the yak becomes mascot of our Salzburg home.
Tricky Nicky
Richard goes on Watchdog to get told off about a bunch of dodgy smoothies. PR rule number one – say sorry lots. Nicky Campbell didn’t know what hit him.
A brand new name
Juicy Water turns into a new thing called This Water. The launch team are exiled across the road as a punishment for making bigger profits than innocent.
Democracy in action
We start
having an AGM (A Grown-up Meeting), inviting our drinkers to Fruit Towers for the day. People from all over the land come to ask questions and eat
cake.
Potloads of healthy food
innocent expands into food with the launch of the mighty veg pot. 3 portions of veg in every pot – what’s not to like?
Physical education
Ben the designer lives secretly in the innocent gym for four weeks after being kicked out by his girlfriend.
By royal decree
Prince Andrew visits Fruit Towers. A Big Knit granny causes a diplomatic incident when she berates the prince for not wearing the woolly hat she’s knitted for him.
The book of the story
It’s our 10th
birthday, so we celebrate by writing a book, containing all of the stuff we’ve learned so far. Rumours that the first edition was only four pages long are unfounded.
The seal of approval
It’s official – our smoothies contain two portions of fruit. Years of government hassling pays off (thank you Shilpee).
Things get in tents
It's time for our Nature Weekend again. There's a recession on, so we go camping. Quite chilly.
Tuuuuuuuuuubes
A new invention – fruit tubes for kids. An innovative way to sneak fruit into people who say they don’t like fruit.
Hello Coca Cola
Coca-Cola invests in innocent. A nation rejoices/sends an angry letter/doesn’t really notice.
Get your hard hat on
Work
commences on turning our new building into Fruit Towers v3. We remove a whole
floor at great expense and then spend 8 months trying to decide on the colour
of the tiles in the kitchen.
Rabbit rabbit rabbit
We give birth to (and then kill) a small, defenceless rabbit. (When we say kill, we mean we stopped running that particular advert. There was no killing per se.)
This one's for the bees
Buy One Get One Bee turns everything yellow for a while. Many bees are saved as a result. We hope you get stung soon (in a good way).
Our very own caff
Our 5-a-day café opens for business in Shoreditch. 5,000 people are served their 5-a-day in great style. Delicious.
Is it a bird…?
The innocent superhero takes to the skies, here to save the peckish and those who feel threatened by cake shops.
It's time for juice
Our biggest launch ever – orange juice (shortly followed by apple juice) in very nice looking carafes. Fridges across the land rejoice.
Intro-juicing
We launch our delicious new juice blends and install a new juice line at the factory to cope with demand.
a fond farewell
Our founders hand over the running of
the business to Douglas and the new
Bored. Rich, Adam and Jon depart in a
small dinghy, whilst the rest of us head to
Marbella to mourn/celebrate their
passing (no offence chaps).
World domination continues
Our benevolent plans for world domination
take a giant leap forward as we become the
number one chilled juice brand in Germany,
Austria and Denmark.
tastes good, does good
After a lengthy brainstorm we conclude that
the things we make taste good, do you
good, and do others good too. And thus
‘Tastes Good, Does Good’ is born.
hej Sverige
We take our drinks to Sweden. It’s a smooth,
cliché-free launch. We’ve abba-solutely no
IKEA how we pulled it off.
new and super
Super smoothies and cold pressed fruit & veg
juice arrive in Ireland. No one is really sure
what cold pressed means but everyone
agrees it’s a very good thing.
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