Fireworks being let off early. Kids roaming the streets for sweets, chocolate and cold hard cash. Pumpkin for tea every night. This week’s news is like a decent haul of trick or treat minus any RDRI (repetitive doorbell ringing injuries).

Copenhagen countdown

It’s less than 6 weeks until the big climate change meeting in Copenhagen and our Jess is off to meet Ed Miliband next week. Thanks to everyone who submitted a question for Jess to ask Ed. We’ve whittled them all down to a final 10 and would love your help in choosing the top 5. Have a read, vote for your favourite and Jess will make sure to ask them next week. We’ll then put a video of Ed’s answers right here in a couple of weeks’ time. Democracy in action. Get involved.

Hats of the world: part 2

Linda (who looks after the innocent foundation) has been busy knitting again for this year’s Big Knit. Following her successful 2008 collection (a fine array of traditional headwear from the countries the foundation supports), this year Linda has gone one better and whipped up a selection of hats to represent the type of projects the foundation supports. From watering cans through to beehives, you can get a better look at her A/W 09 collection right here. Meantime, the deadline for sending all hats into us is this Friday 30th October. So if you’re hoarding any woollen wonders up, please get them to a post box quick sharp (preferably in some sort of envelope device rather than free form).

Halloween handy hints

Bit behind on your Halloween preparations? Need some inspiration? Then look no further:

• Stuck on ideas for a bloodcurdling buffet? How about some scary sandwiches? A cheerful coffin biscuit perhaps? A tasty ghoulash? Or maybe just good old fashioned Monster Munch a la hummus.
•If you’re still undecided on a costume, here’s quick guide to fancy dress effort:
Pumpkin: Chicken wire + papier machier + orange face paint =
commendable. Cushion stuffed up orange jumper = poor.
Vampire: Talc face + pointy teeth + ketchup blood =
acceptable. Must pronounce the letter ‘w’ as ‘v’ (‘I
vant to bite your neck’, ‘Vich vay is the car vash?’ etc)
Black cat/devil: Lame. Might as well put on your dad’s dressing
gown and go as a grumpy middle aged man. Or just
stay home
• Hate trick or treaters? Simply bribe the first set that turn up at your house with a family pack of fun size Mars Bars. Then get them to hide in your garden for the rest of the evening, scaring off all other potential would be treaters. Happy Halloween indeed.

And spookily...

And finally...

If Autumn was an air freshener, it would smell of bonfires, crackly leaves and damp washing. However, your living room would also smell of smoky pants. Autumn-all-year-round versus lightly smoked boxers. Tough call.

Consequences, consequences

Scribble. Fold. Pass. Read. Scribble some more. We’ve just launched our very own on-line version for kids, using our kids’ magnets as inspiration. Francesca Simon (author of the Horrid Henry books) has written 26 opening lines to 26 stories and the idea is that kids continue the stories by adding a new line. Everyday at 4 o’clock, we pick the winning lines and then the whole thing starts again. There are prizes galore not to mention the chance to have your line in the final story. All you need to do to play is click here.

Cartoon break

We've never made an ad especially for kids before. Or officially introduced them to our innocent kids' gang. Which seems a bit strange,
seeing as our kids smoothies are made especially for small people. So we’ve made a new ad which does just that. It features the members of our innocent kids’ gang, bobbing about, squashing fruit and what not. You can watch it right here, right now or if you need an excuse to spend a few hours lolling about, watching cartoons, just wait for it to pop up in the ad breaks on Nickelodeon, Disney or Cartoon Network.

Fruit for questions

There’s still time to submit your questions for our Jess to ask Ed Miliband when she goes to chat to him about sustainability and climate change in a few weeks time. You can ask anything you like - from the UK’s position on Copenhagen to climate change issues generally. We’ll then get you to vote for the top 5 questions in next week’s news and the askers of the top 5 questions will win a boxful of smoothies as well as having their questions put to Ed. So don’t be shy. Ask your question right here.

Scandi update

It’s been a while since we told you what’s been going down, Scandi side. So here’s a few choice nuggets of what’s new with our friends who live across the pond and up a bit:

• Gert Fylking, the most popular DJ from Morren Zoo (aka the morning show of Sweden’s top commerical radio station, Rix) recently desribed our smoothies as ’super good’. Given his choice of moustache, this is high praise indeed.
• In Finnish, the Helsinki AEGEE student organisation translates as ”Helsingin kauppakorkeakoulun opiskelijoiden kansainvälinen opiskelijaverkostotapaaminen”. Nope. Us neither.
• The mascot for the Crazy Days festival at Helsinki’s premier shopping mall (where everything gets sold at crazy prices) is a man in a giant banana costume. Crazy.

Stay tuned for more exciting updates as we make them up get them.

Stop press stop press stop press

Due to the postal strikes and shortage of carrier pigeons, we’ve extended our Big Knit deadline until 30th October. So you can continue knitting away for another couple of weeks.

And finally...

We all have good times, and we all have bad times. But remember the time you met that man/woman and went on that date/riverboat? You had such a wonderful afternoon/sandwich, and love/pollen was in the air. Oh, to be young/in Bilbao again.

Free gift inside

We’ve never done a free thing in the pack before. But now we have. Magnets, magnets, everywhere. But mainly in our kids smoothie multipacks. Yes, these amazing alphabet fridge magnets now come free with every purchase of our kids smoothies, and they look pretty special. Designed by our very own Ben and then magnetised in a secret magnetising facility, they are going to make your fridge look very good indeed. There are three of them inside each pack, and as with all great gifts they're only available for a limited amount of time, in this case until the end of the year. Buying them after that point will result in disappointment and an upset, vengeful fridge that ‘forgets’ to keep the milk cold. If you fancy winning a full set, click here.

Return of the choir

If you’re of a certain age, you will remember the St Winifred’s School Choir singing “There’s No One Quite Like Grandma”, a heartfelt lament about grandmas everywhere that knocked John Lennon from the number one spot back in 1980. So you will be very excited to know that we have reunited the choir, and that they’re re-recording the song, in an attempt to get it to number one at Christmas. All money raised from the Big Knit Choir’s single will go towards this year’s Big Knit target of raising £250,000 for Help The Aged and Age Concern, supporting healthy eating and living projects this winter. And we have a secret weapon in our battle to combat the power of the X Factor Christmas single – we’ve asked X Factor vocal coach Annie Skates to get them in tune. More info here, a Facebook group here, and a couple of articles here and here.

Two new veg pots for you

It’s not just the magnetiser that’s getting loads of work. The Veg Pots kitchen is pretty frantic too. There are two fine new recipes launching this week for you to try. Number one recipe – roasted aubergine moussaka. Deeply and darkly delicious. Number two recipe – roasted beetroot quinoa. It’s pretty pink, and as well as containing nutty pumpkin seeds, there’s an interesting grain called quinoa (pronounce ‘keen-wah’) in the pot. In fact, upon reading Wikipedia we find out that it’s not a grain but actually a pseudocereal, and a handy source of protein too. Go get some – in branches of Tesco right now.

Enough with the serious stuff

Making magnets and reuniting choirs is all very well, but when we’re not working our behinds off on complicated projects (just you try operating the magnetiser), we like to relax out in the car park. Donning shower caps and plastic ponchos, we take a cool, long drink, ideally from the height of a very long arm. Then we pour smoothies from these vertiginous heights, getting some in our mouths and most of it everywhere else. Why do we do this? Well, our computers were broken and the IT team have moved the printers, so we needed something to do while it all got fixed. And it was Emma’s birthday. Watch it happen here, along with some other films we made this week.

And finally...

(Thanks to Nicholai for the links.)

This autumnal weather makes us want to curl up in a duvet, eat crumpets and watch The Love Boat on repeat. Come aboard this week’s news - we’ve been expecting you.

Fungi fancy

Mushrooms. Friends to Ray Mears and loved by you, they caused something of an outcry at our AGM back in May when our butternut pearl barley risotto veg pot recipe pipped the woodland mushroom risotto recipe to the post in the people’s vote. And since then, you’ve been pretty vocal about bringing the mushrooms into the veg pot fold. Well, just like football being a game of two halves, autumn is going the same way (minus the penalty shoot outs) and as of this week, our woodland mushroom risotto will be re-claiming the shelves of selected branches of Waitrose, Sainsbury’s and Tesco stores. Keep your eyes peeled for it.

Lunch is on us (sort of)

The path to high veg enlightenment can be long and rather windy at times. So we’re giving away a mighty 1,000 free veg pot vouchers and a further 10,000 £1 money-off vouchers to help you along the way. All you need to bag your voucher is fill in this form, wing up a quick prayer to the giant carrot in the sky and chant ‘om’ for a bit. May the veg be with you.

Leeking news

And if the prospect of wild mushrooms or money off vouchers wasn’t enough to send you giddy with delight in the frozen peas aisle, to add further veg fuelled excitement, our veg pots are going to be appearing in their first TV ad on your telly very soon. Catch a sneak peek of the action right here.

Climate change central

Home to the likes of Hans Christian Andersen, Peter Schmeichel and Aqua, this December the eyes of the world will be on Copenhagen as it plays host to the creation of the next Kyoto Protocol. In case you weren’t too sure, the meeting is for an international commitment to secure crucial reductions in greenhouse gas emissions, which we need all countries around the world to sign up to. So it’s a pretty big deal. Our Jess has made a little film about it, and in November she’s off to meet Ed Miliband, the Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change. Since Ed will be attending the Copenhagen meeting, we thought we'd ask you to submit any questions you might have for him to us. They could be about Copenhagen, the UK's position on the issues or just climate change generally. To watch Jess’ film and submit any questions you’d like Jess to ask Ed, just click here.

Caring for life

It was excitement all round in Germany last week as Christian went along to Munich Town Hall to attend the LifeCare Food Awards. LifeCare is an initiative in Germany to improve the quality of life and health, and we were honoured to be the first company awarded their “Business of the Year” prize. Here’s the man himself accepting the award, just before he made a little speech (the only one of the day apparently). Thankfully there were some Bavarian-style sandwiches on hand to steady his nerves. Canapé calming at its finest.

And finally...