27th March 2008
Excessive egg shaped chocolate eating got you down? Don’t fret – there is a cure. Pop a stick of celery up each nostril and run 10km in under an hour. Works every time.
A currant affair
If you like berries, then you're going to whistle like a frenzied marmot in mating season (boy, do they whistle) when you hear how many we've managed to cram into our new smoothie of the month. Not 107. Not 46. No, we managed to squash a whopping 112 whole berries into the bottle. And still had room for a picture of a pie on the front. Some have described this recipe as being akin to a jazz trio going freestyle in your mouth. But not being big on jazz, we prefer just to call it blackcurrants, raspberries & redcurrants. It's in the shops now.
Coming along?
Thanks to everyone who entered the ballot to come along to our first AGM in April. Over 1000 of you applied and we've picked the winning entries; you can see a few of the lucky winners here. If you've not heard from us, then unfortunately you didn't get through this time. We're really sorry you can't all come - there's only so much room at Fruit Towers. But we promise to keep you posted as to what's happening nearer the time, and we'll be trying to share as much of the day as we can via video and perhaps a little book as well.
Lucky Dan
This week's letter of the week came from Emily who saw Dan G giving a talk in Paris recently. She wrote in to tell us how “fabulous” Dan was and that his presentation “was so very refreshing after all those boring politicians” especially since he wore ‘a rather fetching shirt’ and gave riveting insights like "it's very cold in winter...and in fridges”.
She requested that everyone in the office to give Dan a “hug/pat/rub of some sort…in an appropriate place" when we saw him. He liked it so much that we thought we’d extend the opportunity to those of you in need of a bit of luck – just rub the photo and make a wish.
An excellent idea
Our Graham has recently come back from his holiday in Tanzania. Well, we say holiday but he actually went to climb Mount Kilimanjaro and raised over £1,100 for Breast Cancer Care and The British Heart Foundation in the process. If that's not enough of a worthwhile vacation for you, he also visited one of the projects that the innocent foundation supports. Excellent Development support communities in Africa to conserve soil and water, which improves water supply, enables better food production and helps to provide an income as well. You can read a bit more about Graham's visit and this excellent project here.
And finally...
19th March 2008
Here’s an interesting fact. Snails can sleep for three years. If that made you gently weep with boredom, then please read on and pray that it will get better.
A country gent
Richard was interviewed in Country Life last week and it’s gone to his head a bit. For starters, he’s been riding into work each day on a small pony and referring to his two bedroom flat in Shepherd’s Bush as ‘the manor’. He’s made his own jam, bought a suit made entirely from yellow corduroy and refuses to answer to anything other than Squire or Mr. Reed. We’re all ignoring him in the hope that by next week, it’ll be back to the usual flowery-shirt-beaded-necklace combo. That said, we’re keeping the pony. His name is Applejack.
Who’s the fittest of them all?
We ran a competition a couple of weeks ago to find our fittest drinker. We felt pretty knackered just reading the entries. But in the end, there can only ever be one sweaty, muscle-bound winner and that’s Graham. He’s about to do the Marathon des Sables, a 150 mile endurance race over 6 days across the Sahara Desert. Some smoothies, a medal and the very best of luck to him and his soon to be very sore thighs. One final thing – watch out for Doc Trotter and his blister knife, Graham.
VAT is here to stay
In case you missed the budget speech last week, here’s a quick summary of this year’s highlights.
Booze will be dearer.
Driving gas guzzling cars will be more expensive.
And healthy juices and smoothies will not be VAT free.
Bummer. Sadly, encouraging people to get more fruit didn’t make it into the right bit of the red briefcase this year. But we’re chuffed that over 70 newspapers picked up on the story, that Vince Cable is on the case and that over 20,000 of you signed our petition to support this change. A massive thanks to everyone who helped with our petition and don’t worry, we haven’t given up just yet...
And finally...
12th March 2008
Hello, and welcome to this week’s news, slightly slimline, like tonic. I mean, who said every week had to be stuffed full of information? What’s wrong with little and often? Having said all of that, don’t be surprised if we come back at you next week all chubby, like Bristow. That’s the thing about news. You just don’t know what’s going to happen next.
Spring has sprunk
Sprunk’s a good word, don’t you think? Like sprung but with a ‘k’. Anyway, here’s a new drink, for sprink. It’s in a big carton and has daffodils on it. The deal is simple – it’s made from lychees and purple passion fruits. The purple ones are smaller than their yellow cousins, but they pack a powerful punch. Fragrant, zesty and tropical enough to get you salivating like a wrong dog, they sum up all of spring's good stuff in one tidy carton, which is quite handy. As mentioned, this recipe is a spring thing, and is only available whilst squirrels procreate in the trees. But for now, please make the most of this fleeting visitor, and if you’re feeling really attentive, look out for the four different cartons, with illustrative variations so subtle that only a true artist will notice them.
The Cable guy
Politics isn’t our forte, but we've been campaigning to get VAT reduced on all 100% fruit juices and smoothies for a while now. It seemed like the right thing to do. In a world where two thirds of adults aren't getting their five a day, we reckon that making healthy stuff more affordable is a good thing. And 20,000 of you have signed our online petition (thank you) so we guess it must have struck a chord. This weekend, the mighty Vince Cable announced that he thought it was a good idea to reduce tax on fruit drinks and encourage people to get a bit healthier (watch it here or read it here). What a man. A true visionary. Cable for President anyone?
Row my boat
We need someone to help us row a boat. Maybe you can help. About 30 of us are rowing (virtually) around the UK to raise money for Macmillan Cancer Support. You do the miles in the gym, log them on the website, and hopefully by 12th April we'll have rowed about 200 miles each. You can support us here.
And here’s the thing. One of our rowers (Giles) has got an injury. Something to do with his rotator cuff. So we’re looking for someone to step in and row 200 miles by 12th April. Could it be you? If you reckon it is, drop Siobhan a line at siobhan@innocentdrinks.co.uk. We’re rooting for you.
And finally...
5th March 2008
Welcome to March, named after Frederick March, born in Ashby de la Zouch, Leicestershire. In 1786 Frederick noticed a 31 day gap between February and April and decided to make it his own. Hats off to Fred.
Billions of berries
Our fruit buying team are not just a bunch of pretty faces. They haggle like old ladies buying fish at the market and are pretty darn good at doing long sums as well. Here’s an example – by working out the average weight of a berry, and after applying a couple of vectors and the coefficient of friction (tough maths from the street) to their calculations, they worked out how many berries we used in our smoothies last year. But rather than show you a boring equation, here is a little quiz instead. Guess how many berries we used last year:
a. 36
b. 25,014
c. About a billion
It just so happens that we’re looking for someone to come and help us find more berries this year. So if you know anyone who’d fit the bill, then please point them here (NB If they chose answer a or b to the quiz, then they’re probably not quite right for the job).
Bright young things
We're always looking for new blood to come and work here. They bring their Vampire Weekend CDs and perhaps wear odd socks, which means we can copy their fresh moves and look all young and cool again. Perhaps. Anyway, this year we're launching our first proper graduate scheme, so we've been out and about this week, visiting universities across the land. If you know any shiny soon-to-be graduates or are one yourself and fancy working at Fruit Towers, have a look at our scheme here.
Well fit
It’s official – buff people love our drinks. Last week, More! Magazine’s in-house fitness expert, Kristoph, gave our guava, mangoes and goji berries the thumbs up in his column ‘Ask The Fit Bloke.’ It’s a great place to get tips on the perfect lat raise, sixty second abs and how to look like you’re doing one armed press ups when you’re actually sleeping on the floor. Anyway, Kristoph’s glowing review has prompted us to see if we can find our fittest drinker. If it’s you, let us know here and win yourself some rather fetching gym gear, some smoothies and a medal.
Winning line
Back in February, we ran a flickr competition to see who would be first to take a photo of our special recycled bottle labels on a shop shelf. The first person to pap a tidy row of these bottles was Vixff and our favourite eco friendly use of the bottle was this nice water container for painting entered by p0stagepaid. A smart set of recycled stationery and a boxful of smoothies are on their way to you both now. Well done everyone.
Things to do this spring
Spring has sprung. We celebrated digitally by changing the header on this email, but we figure that you might want to welcome Spring without having to write any html. So here’s some stuff you might fancy doing yourself, while the flowers bloom and squirrels procreate in a hole up a tree:
Geocaching: Sort of like a modern treasure hunt but using your sat nav instead of a musty old map belonging to an absent-minded pirate.
Cheese rolling: Every Spring Bank Holiday, crowds gather on Cooper’s Hill in Gloucestershire for a spot of cheese rolling. Start training now.
Gardening as nature intended: What’s not to like? Sharpen your secateurs and get cracking.
Come along to our AGM: If you're not busy on 26th April, why not come and have your say at our AGM? There'll be sandwiches, cakes and maybe even a maypole if you're lucky. Register here.
And finally...
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