Yo. That's how they're saying it on the mean streets of W6. Of course, we prefer a more rounded 'hello'. Hello. Hope you're OK. Here's some news, and a film to watch as well.

Our little hats now in Sainsbury's

If you want to see lots of little hats, here's your chance. They're now on the shelves in over 500 branches of Sainsbury's. This eagle-eyed blogger has already spotted them, and just in case you can't make it down to the big orange supermarket, we've made a little film to show you what it's all about. Click here to watch it.

Free mince pies

Now then, if you happen to be wandering around Copenhagen this Wednesday 29th November with nothing much to do, you should pop into Viking Towers (our innocent outpost in that neck of the woods) and have some mince pies and mulled wine. Really. It's open house. The action starts at 5pm and if you need the address, it's Vesterbrogade 14a, 2Tv, DK 1620 Copenhagen V. If you do pay our Danish friends a visit, please take some embarrassing photos of them and send them over.

Dr. Shilpee Mehrotra BSc (Hons), MMedSci, PhD

Shilpee started working here recently as our official nutritional expert, so we thought it only right and proper to hand over to her every now and then, whenever we've got something to say about our drinks. This week, Shilps starts with the basics - why are our smoothies good for you?

Shilpee says "It is recommended that we should eat 5 portions of fruit and vegetables a day. This is because consuming fruits and vegetables has both short term and long term health benefits. Fruit is packed with vitamins and minerals and can help you to maintain a healthy weight. Fruit is also an excellent source of fibre and antioxidants. As part of a healthy lifestyle eating lots of fruit and vegetables can even help reduce the risk of heart disease, stroke and some cancers. What's even better is that fruit tastes delicious and there's so much variety to choose from. innocent Smoothies are a great way to get the goodness of fruit".

More from Dr. Shilps and all of those letters that come after her name very soon.

A nun knits...some hats

A story headlined 'Knit nun, purl nun' in last Friday's Lancashire Evening Post tells the story of Anne Goodman, the knitting nun. Anne and friends knitted a whole bunch of hats for Supergran, winning Anne a certificate for fashioning the most creative hats in the Preston and South Ribble area.
Hearty congratulations go to Anne from all of us lot at innocent. We're pleased to report that her hats weren't holey. Just, erm, holy. Ouch.

And finally...

Hello. The view from the window today sees clear blue skies all around, with rain to follow at some point, probably. That's the innocent weather - now over to the news.

Hat's a record

It has begun. Supergran hats are on the shelves in EAT cafes across the land and in Sainsbury's from Monday - they sure do look bonny. We're on target to get 220,000 hats in the UK, which shatters the 180,000 we were originally after. And that's all thanks to you. Really. Without wanting to come over all gushy, if we sell 220,000 behatted bottles, that means a donation of a whopping £110,000 towards keeping older people warm this winter (via the good people at Age Concern).

And that's because you all knitted the hats in the first place. You're the best.

PS check out the Hat of the Week here.

À la recherche du pompon perdu

Meanwhile, in France, where the air is clean and the men are great lovers, they've broken their Tricothon records too. They now have 35,000 hats, trumping the intended 10,000. Only problem is a lack of bobbles in the greater Paris area. So our lot have been out all weekend, raiding all pompon shops for the last few bobbles.

The west wing

Scenes of great jubilation at Fruit Towers in London this week as the new Unit 6 annex opened. Ian the builder cut the red ribbon (the mayor was out of town, opening a home for orphaned squirrels) and staff rejoiced at the fact that they no longer have to sit on each other's laps. In all seriousness, we've had lots of talented new people join us this year, so the space has come as a relief.

The shame in our game

Thanks to Jess, Jack and Helen for sending in this innocent hoopla game. We had a go at it and can proudly say that we are useless.

And finally...

In this week's news - the bird that sings like a chainsaw, some knitting and Tom Selleck. Classy.

Tale of the tux

It seems like it's the season to win prizes. We've won a few recently, which makes us all feel proud to be making great drinks and growing as a company.

The latest ones were at the National Business Awards, where we won two awards things - more here. But it's not like we measure our success by the amount of strange glass-shaped things on the window ledge. No. We judge success on whether we get our deposits back on the cheap tuxedos that we hire for such evenings.

So far, so good - only one deposit has been lost, which means we're currently running at a 96.7% success rate. Wonder if we could get a prize for that?

Wild things

We banned gratuitous mentions of celebrities in our news a while ago, mainly because we didn't think we'd ever top having seen Tom Selleck doing some shopping. And we don't think we ever will. But this week was moderately exciting. Coldplay's PA rang us to say that they're recording their new album in London and that our smoothies are part of their rider. What's more, they're getting through so many of them that she wanted to order them through a wholesaler. Phew, rock'n'roll. In other celeb news, our Ceri has got a signed photo of Roger Black on her desk. Time to ban celebrity mentions again.

The Big Knit

We had a little party to launch Supergran last week. It was called the Big Knit and we invited lots of people who have been involved in this year's campaign - the folks from Age Concern (who we're raising money for), EAT and Sainsbury's (who'll be selling the behatted bottles) and plenty of knitters. Age Concern invited some celebrities (they get everywhere) and we all ate cucumber sandwiches. Very civilised.

The Big Knit will also be going out on the road, so if you fancy coming to do some knitting with us, or if you just want to learn to knit with the help of some experts, we'll be in these places very soon...

London, Thursday 23rd November, 9:30am-12pm at EAT in Berkeley Square
Durham, Monday 27th November, 11am-2pm at Sainsbury's in the Arnison retail centre
Birmingham, Wednesday 29th November, 11am-2pm at Sainsbury's in Oldbury
Manchester, Saturday 2nd December, 9:30am-12pm at EAT in the Arndale Centre

And finally...

*This link takes you to Google Video, which contains thousands of clips. We can't vouch for the decency or tastefulness of every clip on their site, but we can vouch for the clip we've linked to, which features David Attenborough in the jungle. Nothing dodgy about that.

Octopuses are cleverer than we think, dolphins used to have legs and all of the fish are going to run out. The mysteries of the deep.

A new guest recipe

It's a bit parky out. Frost on the windscreen, central heating turned up to eleven. So it's time for a new and slightly wintry guest recipe. Full of fruit and spices (cinnamon and nutmeg), it's a bit like mulled wine, except you can drive after you've had a bottle of it. Smashing. Some facts about cinnamon and nutmeg:

Inside Europe

So, some interesting things are happening for us outside the UK. We're trying to find people to work for us in Germany, and word is spreading. In Dublin, our drinks are now available in Google's European HQ. Googlers get free smoothies all day. Lucky devils.

In France, our Tricothon is taking off. See left for some pics of little woolly hats with a certain je ne sais quoi. Over in Holland, we are now stocked in a couple of trendy new places called Village Bagels and Café Esprit. And in Copenhagen, we made it into Emmery's, Denmark's favourite posh organic bakery, noted for their strawberry/oregano jam. Like we said, interesting..

Pots of good stuff

We like Little Dish. They make good stuff for kids, and they've just come up with some tasty 100% natural fromage frais for children aged 6 months plus.

They're especially proud of the fact that it's the first fromage frais available with no added sugar or weird sweeteners. Have a look at them here.

The bit at the end