Innocent
Operating from its London HQ, ‘Fruit Towers’, Innocent keeps 71% of the UK’s smoothie market refreshed. Revered for its ethical methods, Innocent gives 10% of profits from its smoothies, thickies, juices and veg pots to charity.
Pros
|
The Inside Buzz View
Innocent Profile & Stats
‘We sure aren’t perfect, but we’re trying to do the right thing’, reads Innocent’s online blurb on sustainability. While this may in fact be true, Innocent’s modesty is surpassed both by their ethical methods and altruistic results. In making its now ubiquitous smoothies, thickies, juices and veg pots, Innocent pays a premium for the best produce from all over the globe – while maintaining as low a carbon footprint as humanly possible – uses recycled or renewable packaging where and when it can, and pledges that everything it ever makes will always be ‘natural, delicious, healthy and sustainable’. It’s this focus on keeping things pure that gave this food and drinks company its name.
However, if not for a turn of fate, 71% of the UK’s smoothie drinkers would be reaching for cartons of Fast Tractor as we speak. Innocent has David Streek – design director at award-winning web designers Deepend – to thank for steering the company towards its now immediately recognisable branding; but even before the first bottle’s label came off the press, customers unanimously agreed the product itself was a winner.
In 1998, three Cambridge graduates spent six months and £500 on developing smoothie recipes. Armed with their new concoctions, the three friends sold their drinks from a stall at a music festival in London. Customers were given the choice of two bins in which they could discard their empty bottles: the ‘No’ bin was for those who thought the trio should carry on their careers in consulting and advertising; the ‘Yes’ bin was for those who thought they should quit their jobs to make smoothies. At the end of the festival, the ‘Yes’ bin was full to the brim, with a telling three cups disposed of under ‘No’. The next day the triumvirate quit their respective jobs.
The founders soon procured investment for their fledgling business, with Maurice Pinto, a wealthy American businessman, funding them to the tune of £250,000. Ten years on, Innocent’s principle investor sold his shares to The Coca-Cola Company for considerably more than his initial outlay. Although Coca-Cola now owns 58% of the company, the original founders maintain that the new investors are ‘hands-off’, ‘haven’t interfered’ and that Innocent will continue to be ‘run as a standalone business’. In short, it’s ‘smoothies-as-usual’.
‘Fruit Towers’, the company’s London HQ, presides over the two million Innocent smoothies sold each week. In addition to its national success, the company has thrived in Ireland, the Netherlands, Germany, France, Austria, Belgium, Denmark, and Switzerland. Innocent now has eight offices across Europe and employs more than 250 people. In little over ten years, the company has grown from being ‘West London’s favourite little juice company’ to being ‘Europe’s favourite little smoothie company’ – and the founders still aren’t satisfied! By 2030, the aim is for Innocent to grow into ‘Earth’s favourite little food company’. And following their meteoric rise, who would bet against them? After all, a wise man once said, ‘We are limited not by our abilities but by our vision’.
