Innocent Drinks is a company that makes smoothies, juice and veg pots, sold in supermarkets, coffee shops and various other outlets. The company sells over two million smoothies per week.Innocent is over 90% owned by The Coca-Cola Company.
 

History

Innocent was founded by three Cambridge University graduates, Richard Reed, Adam Balon and Jon Wright, then working in consulting and advertising. The three were friends at St John's College, Cambridge. In 1999, after spending six months working on smoothie recipes and £500 on fruit, the trio sold their drinks from a stall at a music festival in London. People were asked to put their empty bottles in a 'yes' or 'no' bin depending on whether they thought the three should quit their jobs to make smoothies. At the end of the festival the 'YES' bin was full, with only three cups in the 'NO' bin, so they went to their work the next day and resigned. After quitting their jobs, the three struggled to find investment, but eventually had a lucky break when Maurice Pinto, a wealthy American businessman, decided to invest £250,000.In total, it took fifteen months from the initial idea to taking the product to market.

 

On 6 April 2009, Innocent Drinks announced on its website an agreement to sell a stake of 10-20% to The Coca-Cola Company, with the three founders retaining operational control for £30 million.Their website was bombarded with customers and several pages on social networking sites have emerged that encourage a boycott of the company.In April 2010, Coca-Cola increased its stake in the company to 58% from 18% for about £65 million.In February 2013 Coca-Cola increased their stake to over 90%, leaving the three founders with a small minority holding. 

 

Innocent credit the creation of their brand identity to David Streek (aka Gravy), the design director at Deepend, which also developed their early label designs and website. Before settling on the name "innocent", the product was going to be called Fast Tractor. The company's HQ, Fruit Towers, is now in Ladbroke Grove.

 

Products

Innocent Smoothie with a hat from the Big Knit Campaign

Smoothies are Innocent's primary product. The Innocent smoothie consists of whole crushed fruit and juices, but other ingredients such as carrots and ginger have been used in some drinks. A smoothie also counts towards two of the 5 a day as a 250ml smoothie contains at least one portion of whole crushed fruit (80g) and one portion of juice (150ml).

 

Innocent also makes smoothies in little bottles and bigger cartons; smoothies, fruit tubes and juice for kids; a not-from-concentrate juice range including orange (smooth and with bits); apple; tropical; apple & raspberry; orange & mango; apple, peach & pear; apple & berry; and apple & mango, and veg pots, a range of ready meals.

 

Innocent Foundation

The Innocent Foundation is a UK-registered charity that gives grants to NGOs and other charities, typically in the form of three-year partnerships. It was set up in July 2004 'with the idea of bringing nature and communities closer together for mutual benefit'.This allows Innocent to donate 10% of its profits to charity. The majority of funding goes to support rural development projects in the countries where the fruit innocent uses comes from.Innocent has donated over £4million to the Innocent foundation since its registration in 2004 which has meant the Foundation has helped 530,000 people (the equivalent of 100,000 families) so far, with lots more in the pipeline.