The UK is full of smoothies.
I’m talking about blended fruit, not British men. The biggest hitter in the fruit smoothie market, a 71% share, is innocent Drinks (small “Ëœi’) – they’ve gone from 3 men handing out fruit juice at a music festival in 1998 to a current turnout of over 2 million brightly-filled bottles a week. Everybody loves them. Supermarkets regularly run out of stock (although the major chains have discovered a strategy for lowering demand – they raise the price to unreasonable levels. Clever, that).
What’s the appeal of innocent Drinks?
First, they make their drinks taste better than just about any others out there – and they do this by refusing to unnecessarily complicate their concoctions. Here’s a list of the ingredients of their Oranges, Bananas & Pineapples drink:
One freshly squeezed orange
A third of a pressed pineapple
Half a mashed banana
One pressed apple
A dash of lemon juice
That’s it. No additives, no concentrated frozen-then-thawed fruit juices, no mostly apple and grape juice – and for this reason, these smoothies don’t last very long, even in the fridge. It’s healthy because it’s nothing but liquid fruit. innocent are also publicly committed to running their business in a sustainable fashion.
Second, their phenomenal appeal is partly owing to their truly charming sense of humour. Have a look through their archive of past labels.
At the moment, innocent Drinks are UK/Europe only. But they’ve been so successful that there’s no way that US drinks manufacturers can fail to take note. (It’s official: we don’t need preservatives). Check the labels on your favourite fruit drinks – and if they start sounding, well, British, you know what’s going on…
Image: innocent