The Apple King, the Chilli King, King of the Movies* - this week’s news is a right old royal knees up. Best dust off the best china, get out the fig rolls and start practicing that curtsy.

Apple do nicely

Last time in Focus on Fruit (yep, we’re still working on the title) we told you all about the hairy coconut. This week it’s the turn of the humble apple. They’re naturally sweet and juicy when pressed (hence why we use them in most of our recipes) and are the star player behind our banana-free smoothie. Here’s a bit more apple trivia to knock your friends out with:

• In certain areas of Italy, apple growing is considered so important that towns like Malè and Malosco take their names from the Latin word ‘maletum’ which means ‘apple place’ (not your dad’s belly).
• "Apple" was the code to unlock the map to the Holy Grail in "The Da Vinci Code".
• Tom Hanks collects typewriters (non-apple related but interesting nonetheless).
• Henry is the Apple King. He knows lots about apples. Lots.

More fruit focusing, non-Tom Hanks digressing next time.

Your favourite thing

Now, we’re not talking Robot Wars, 4 day weeks or the whiskers of kittens (excellent as all those things may be). What we’re really keen to know is what your favourite innocent thing ever has been. Not the actual stuff we make – like our smoothies, veg pots and so on - but the all other bits and bobs we’ve done over the years. Adverts, little films, Christmas presents, Fruitstock, a picture of a dog in a jumper, something we’ve written on a bottle, a blog post - anything that’s stood out for you, really. We want to do more of the stuff you like rather than the stuff you don’t. So if you can let us know your favourite thing here, then we’ll add it to our list and try to do more of it.

King of the Chillies

The heat is off, the chillis have landed and the worm juice is no more. In other words, the office chilli growing competition is over and order has been restored. Positive visualisation, intricate pulley systems, daily sabotage – none of these even came close to rivaling Mother Nature (and Mr. Ed) in the quest to grow the biggest chillies in Fruit Towers. Ed simply put his plants in a sunny spot, watered them everyday and occasionally employed a sturdy ruler to fend off wayward fingers. Some might say sitting upstairs under a window with a stationery cupboard D-fence makes for optimum chilli growing conditions. But then that’s just sore loser/rubbish chilli husbandry talking. Mr. Ed reigns supreme as Chilli King and you can read a bit more about his triumph here.

And finally...

*So says the Guinness World Records of 2006.


20th May 2009

If you tied a slice of buttered toast to a cat’s tail and it jumped out of the window, would both the cat and the toast land the right way up? We should be told*.

A grown up meeting (and quite a lot of cake)

We had our second AGM on Saturday. It only rained a bit, there was lots of cake and Fruit Towers was the tidiest it’s ever been. Our innocent masterchef winner Nina came along with her mum, Jenny turned up on Sherbert, and Phillippa et al did a grand job of looking after everyone’s coats.
Democracy was the order of the day, from tasting and voting on new veg pot and smoothie recipes at Fliss’ tasting station to forming orderly queues for tea and deciding which founder to stand next to in the photos. Thanks to everyone who came along, everyone who got involved on line and everyone who graciously ate a decent helping of cake. All the winning recipes from the day will be coming to a shelf near you very soon. Meantime, you can watch all the Q&A action right here.

Squeezed to meet you

We’ve been making our kids smoothies for a while now but lots of parents got in touch to ask if we could make something to get even more fruit into their kids lunchboxes. As well as jellyfish and pound coins, kids told us they like squeezy things. So we combined the two (fruit and squeezy things that is, not Portuguese Man o’War and free money) to come up with innocent squeezies for kids. They’re 100% pure fruit snacks in a squeezy tube, made from whole crushed fruit, a dash of juice and absolutely nothing else. You’ll find them nestled in the chilled juice aisle or if you’re still not sure what we’re harping on about, you can have a look right here.

Your words here

Well, not literally here (unless you fancy popping round on a Tuesday morning and bashing a few stories out) but on the labels on our bottles. We’ve been writing labels for a decade now and thought that you might like a go at writing your own and letting them take pride of place on the shelf. We did something similar as a sort of test run back in February and the entries were so good that we thought we’d do it again. But this time go big. Go huge in fact. Roll it out, massive style, and have something to show the grandkids one day. So if you fancy having your words read by millions, just visit this entry page and get penning.

And finally...

*Disclaimer: this is purely a theoretical musing and in no way whatsoever a rainy day/bored-with-Wii-fit activity suggestion.



13th May 2009

New new new shiny new. That’s what you’d say about this week’s news if you only had two words to describe it. Actually, if you only had two words, they would probably be ‘the’ and ‘news’. But we digress.

Final countdown

Our AGM is happening this Saturday and it’s all systems go in Fruit Towers. As you read this, cakes are being baked, beanbags hoovered and tea urns (hopefully) delivered. If you’re not coming along, you can still get involved from the comfort of your favourite armchair or garden bench. We’re posting a new question on our online AGM discussion board every day this week and there’ll be live blogging and twittering all day Saturday. The top 5 questions you voted for have been added to the pile for the Q&A session and we’ll give you a full debrief of what went down in next week’s news.

Summer’s here

Sort of. Meteorologically speaking, it’s at least another month til summer properly kicks in, but you don’t have to wait that long if you’re already itching to don your sarong. You can taste it, drink it, why you can even bathe in it right now if you like, as our new special guest smoothie is sunning itself in a chiller near you. Mangoes, coconuts and lemongrass tastes like a holiday-in-a-bottle, without all the sand, uneven tan lines and awkward questions from customs officials. It’s here for the next few months, so drink it whenever you’re in need of a bit of spare sunshine.

Master chef

You might remember a while ago we held our own version of Masterchef. No John, Gregg or Loyd but plenty of culinary skills, great ideas and a few veg pots here and there. Our three finalists came down in April for a cook off and after some heated competition and a bit of spoon bashing, we have a winner. You can watch the action here, see who finally triumphed to win the coveted title of innocent Masterchef 2009 and get all inspired for your tea tonight.

And finally...

Fee fi fo fum, this week’s news smells mainly of burning questions, fine prizes and men who fan flames with their hair. Inhale at leisure.

Birthday bits and bobs

Thanks to everyone who entered our 10th birthday competition last week. The 10,000 voucher winners and the lucky 100 who bagged themselves a birthday box will all be receiving their booty very soon. You can see if you’ve won a birthday box here. And if you didn’t manage to win a voucher or bagsy a box, then don’t fret, as Eleanor has come up with a special commemorative recipe for you make at home. And there’s still time to get your mitts on the Howies t-shirt of the week that we designed. This birthday just don’t stop.

Question time

Our AGM is happening next Saturday 16th May and since we couldn’t fit in everyone who wanted to come along, we asked you to submit the questions you’d like to ask at our AGM instead. Thanks to everyone who replied. We’ve chosen 15 varied questions and we’d love you to vote for the final 5. These will then be read out and videoed on the day and posted on the website, along with all the other stuff happening that day (including a load more spontaneous questions from the floor). All you need to do to vote is click here.

The next (new) big thing

Our village fete is having a year off in 2009. We’ve had a good run of festivals and fetes over the last few years – fruitstock ran for 4 years and then our innocent village fete in 2007 and 2008. But we’ve decided that we’ll have a bit of a rest in 2009. To be honest, we’ve got a lot of other stuff on – we’ve launched Veg Pots and our new Squeezies recently and are trying to give them plenty of attention. And we’re working on plenty of other new stuff too – our reason for being as a company is to make more healthy stuff for more people, and so we’re going to focus on that.

But have no fear. We’re still trying to think of something clever to do next year. We’ve had a few ideas already but actually, we’d really like to hear what you'd want to see us do next. A travelling dog show maybe? A touring swimming pool (complete with bathing huts)? A fete in your garden? Some sort of virtual happening for those who live miles away? Let us know all your best (or worst) new ideas right here and who knows, next summer we could be holding the very first innocent Tapdancing Dogs on Ice roadshow, in your back garden.

And finally...