Innosent

Innocent Drinks
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.
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.
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.

In 2007 McDonalds began a 5 year trial of using Innocent smoothies as part of their Happy Meals. Feedback from customers led McDonalds to drop the product in 2012.
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.
In February 2013 Coca-Cola increased their stake to over 90%, leaving the three founders with a small minority holding.

Products
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.
Innocent also makes smoothies, fruit tubes and juice for kids; a not-from-concentrate juice range; and noodle pots and veg pots, a range of ready meals.

Innocent Foundation
Innocent gives 10% of its profits to charity, the majority of which goes to the Innocent foundation, a UK registered charity set up in 2004.
The Innocent foundation’s aim is to help the world’s hungry by providing grants to charities and projects helping communities on a sustainable path to a better life where they can escape poverty and hunger.
The Innocent foundation provides funding for four different types of project to help the world’s hungry: seed funding, local food poverty, breakthrough development and emergency relief.
Since the foundation was set up it has given over £2.4m to 55 projects, helping reach over 530,000 people.

Big Knit
As many as 24,000 people die needlessly because of the cold every winter. Many others spend the time lonely and isolated, unable to heat their homes and struggling to get out and about.
Back in 2003 Innocent Drinks had an idea. The company asked some older people, and some younger people, to knit little woolly hats. They put those hats on our smoothies, and for each one sold they made a donation of 25p to Age UK.

Innocent vans

Innocent office

Innocent job

Innocent ad