let the competition commence

We're a competitive bunch here in Fruit Towers so naturally, with the launch of the innocent Big Knit on Monday, a spirited knitting competition has begun.

Helen has picked up some knitting needles for the first time since 2nd class and she's not doing too badly but there's definitely room for improvement.

 
 
Ali's mustard hat creation is looking pretty good...

  

And she gets extra points for showing us how to make bobbles with our fingers....and very chunky wool.

 

But our undisputed knitting champ is the lovely Kate who whipped up these cute creations last night.

our first little hat

Well there was much excitement at 9am this morning in Fruit Towers. We only launched the innocent big knit on Monday and we already have our first hat - and she's a beaut.

 

This woolly wonder was not knit but crocheted by the loving hands of Louie Clement. Louie got crocheting last night and sent us in this photo this morning.

Thank you so much Louie, you're a star.

Ireland gets clacking

This week finds the floors in Fruit Towers Dublin (and the doors and some of our hairdos) strewn with multicoloured wool, because on Monday we launched the innocent Big Knit 2010 along with David Norris and some lovely ladies from Age Action- Delo McArdle & Beth Nunan.  It’s based on a simple principle: the only thing more irresistible than a delicious fruit-filled smoothie is a delicious fruit-filled smoothie wearing a little hand-knitted woolly hat.

So we're firing up the Knit Signal (it’s like the Bat signal) and asking Ireland’s knitters to help us reach our ambitious target of 80,000 hats, which we’ll put on our bottles and send into shops. From past experience, the behatted bottles fly off the shelves (people are crazy for the cute little fellas), which is good news because for every one sold 25c goes to the lovely people at Age Action. They’ll then use the money raised to help keep Ireland’s vulnerable older population warm this winter.

Perhaps you, like some of us, still mumble “in-around-under-out” while you knit? That’s no excuse. Our website has patterns and instructions for every level, from rank amateur who doesn’t know a purl from a pompom, to the knitting pro who’s reading this in their knitted house off a knitted computer screen.  And that’s where you’ll find other ideas too (the website, not the knitted house), like blogs, party invites, hat-of-the-week designs, and our patent-pending hatometer.

Remember each tiny hat is a warmer winter for one of the older members of our community, which leads to a toasty glow in the heart region for the knitter and for whoever buys the bottle. Who’d have thought knitting could keep everyone warm?

Here are some of our favourite photos from the innocent Big Knit launch

Here's David Norris with some little woolly hats

David with Age Action members Beth Nunan & Delo McArdle having a chin wag

David & Delo and the innocent Big Knit hatometer

Kate Kennedy's attempt to knit with giant needles

Mark visits Fruit Towers

The innocent AGM is all over for another year. It was a hot hot Saturday in London and the lovely Mark Moran got to fly over from Dublin and go along Fruit Towers.

Here's Mark arriving to Fruit Towers.*

 

Here's Mark leaving Fruit Towers.**

 

Stay tuned to find out what happened in the middle. Mark will be writing a blog post for us with details on all the goings on.

*He's the one in the blue t-shirt with sunshine on it - very appropriate. Our Helen is in the middle and Mark's friend Chris is on the left.

**With a happy new friend.

the kids are alright

25 mums and dads (2 of whom were a lovely Mum & Dad from Ireland), 35 kids, one fantastic face painter and a walking smoothie descended on Fruit Towers last Saturday for a morning of fruit filled fun.

 

There was bird feeder maker Tansy.

Colouring in and magnet art with Ben.

Smoothie making workshops in the kitchen with Lucy F. 

Fruit hat making with Kate and Gayle.

 
The chance to chat to Ness all about healthy eating tips for kids.

A chance to test our brand new kids website.

All of which was thirsty work so Alison and Abi were on hand to serve refreshments which included lots of yummy carrot and courgette cakes made by Abi's lovely sister.

However, the highlight of the morning for the kids seemed to be the chicken (which everyone under 4ft tried to take home).

Closely followed by Ben being covered in glitter.

Everyone gave us their healthy tip for getting fruit and veg into kids as they left and you can print your very own copy right here (just click on the image below to make it really big).

 

 

 

The innocent AGM competition: we have a winner

 

So a bunch of you good folk wrote in with the questions you would put to the innocent head honchos at Fruit Towers in London during this Saturday’s AGM.  The questions ranged from the practical to the whimsical, but after some debate (and emotional blackmail) those in Mark Moran’s camp won the day - their logic being that the AGM is our grown-up meeting, and his was a very grown-up question. He posted:

With all that we hear about global warming and carbon emissions and the scary things that are happening to our planet because of our irresponsibility I'm wondering what do the guys at fruit towers have planned to do their bit to combat all this nasty carbon and global warming stuff?

This floats our boat because reducing our carbon footprint is a big deal to us. Plus we felt that while other questions did a good job at representing particular groups (Carol Hughes was asking on behalf of mums, Francis Gannon wanted to ask about schools), of all of them Mark’s was the one that potentially affected the most people i.e. all 6 billion of us, as well as the bears, birds, bobcats, bugs, bushes, bananas... plus everything that doesn’t begin with b. Kind of hard to beat that for a far-ranging question.

So thanks to everyone who participated, and congratulations to Mark. He and a friend will be heading to London on us, to hopefully ask his Big Question and any others he might have, and to participate in all the activities and forums planned to help shape innocent’s 2011.  We hear preparations for his arrival are well underway at Fruit Towers. Well, okay maybe they’re not just for him, but this year’s AGM promises to be jam-packed with things to see and do and, of course, taste. But you won’t have to take our word for it - on his return, Mark’s going to write us a big juicy blog post about his experiences, so watch this space. Well, not constantly, that would be odd and you probably have other things to do, but do check back in next week to see how he got on.

What’s in a name?

There’s always room for improvement, no matter how good things are - remember when we thought CDs were pretty rad (and yes, we may even have used that word), and then along came MP3s (so much radder)?

Well, if you substitute recordable music formats with fruit (bear with us), that’s kind of what’s going on with our squeezies, which we have just renamed fruit tubes. The renaming isn’t just cosmetic, it signals the important changes we’ve made as a result of comments from you guys, especially the mums who buy them for their kids:

•     They’re even tastier: we’ve upgraded the recipes from merely ‘yummy’ to officially ‘scrummy’, while still keeping them 100% crushed fruit with no additives and no lumps.

•    They’re easier for little hands to open: very young children may still need an adult’s help but most kids will find it simpler now to tear off the end and get at the goodies inside.

•    The packaging is better for Planet Earth: we’ve replaced the old plastic cylinder with a 100% recycled, 100% recyclable cardboard box.

•    In scientific tests (demonstrated by Ali in the pic above), ‘fruit tubes’ is a lot easier to say while actually eating a fruit tube than ‘squeezies’.

Now that we write it down, that last one doesn’t seem like such  a crucial improvement, but
Ali insisted it was, and selflessly volunteered to carry out the test on about a dozen mangoes
and pineapples fruit tubes “just to make sure”. Who are we to argue with science?

To celebrate these changes, fruit tubes are 1/2 price at Super Valu until May 22nd - for a tasty way to get some pure fruit goodness into your kids, they can’t be beaten (though they can be frozen into ice pops, which, with summer coming up, is pretty rad).

More info about fruit tubes

play fun games and win exciting prizes

 

We think that if there's something better than giving away a load of cool free magnets, it's giving away more cool free magnets. So that’s what we’re doing; they're in the special packs of innocent smoothies for kids that are in the shops now.

Do you remember we had a game of consequences last year? Check it out here. Well we got a lot of feedback about what you liked and it turns out you want games. You also wanted games and some more games. Oh and some prizes for playing games. So we've also taken time out from squashing fruit to make a new website to celebrate: http://www.innocentkids.com . We did like you told us and put in six great games - one presented by each of the innocent Kids gang; The Dude, Ed, Chef, Specs, Bounce and Nature Girl. Please give them a whirl here: http://www.innocentkids.com and keep your eyes open for our new magnet designs in special packs of our innocent smoothies for kids. They're in the shops now. Oh and please let us know what you think of the games.