Our carton family

We are delighted to announce that both our kids juicy drink carton and our 1.25 litre carton are now made from 100% Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) certified card, making the whole carton family forest friendly.

Forests are special places, and we want them to stick around. By using card with the FSC stamp of approval, we can be sure that it comes from responsibly managed forests where people, animals and trees are all treated with the respect they deserve. If you want to read more about the great work of the FSC visit their website.

Toy Show Experience ticket giveaway - Competition update

Competition update.

Congratulations to our winners below. They'll each be getting a family pass for this week's The Toy Show Experience at the Convention Centre Dublin. We'll be dropping each of the winners a mail shortly with all the details.

Claire Ryan
Laura Brown
Jennifer
Joanne Leonard
Michelle Long
Dani
Karen Lloyd-Peate
Sarah O'Meara
Eilis Collins
Ursula Hayes

Thanks so much to everybody who entered. There were some great Halloween costumes.

Competition now closed.

The long weekend is over, but, hey, that leaves everybody with a 4 day work week. Not too shabby. Just in case anyone is suffering from return to work shock, we've a nice surprise competition for you all. We have family passes to give away for the Toy Show Experience in the Convention Centre Dublin this coming Friday, Saturday and Sunday. The show has over 3,000 sq metres of toys for children of all ages with all the top toy shops, lots of fun entertainment for kids, loads of competitions, Santa's workshop and a toy hospital.

To be in with a chance of winning a family pass, let us know in the comments below, what your ever best Halloween costume was...

Keep an eye on our facebook wall this week to see if you're a winner.

Winners announced - Win tickets to the Lion King 3D Premiere

Competition update.

Congratulations to everyone in the list below who has won a family pass to the Dublin premiere of Disney's The Lion King 3D in the Savoy Cinema. Check your email inbox for details on how to claim your tickets.

Garrett McCord
Sandra Gough
Susie Connolly
Laura F
Donnacha Redmond
Shelly Brennan
N'O B
Emmett Eiffe
Sue Carroll
Emily Diamond
Emma Carty
Emer Aine Landers
Daniel Bhattacharya
Shauna O Hara
Lorraine Brennan
Linda (MouseHSE)
Helen Costello
Steve B
Nuala Brennan
Vicky Kyne

Competition closed.

To celebrate the launch of Disney's The Lion King 3D on October 7th, we have 17 family passes to give away to the premiere screening in the Savoy Cinema, O'Connell Street, Dublin on Sunday October 2^nd at 11am. As it is a breakfast screening, we'll have tasty new innocent orange juice to keep everyone refreshed. To be in with a chance of winning a family pass (2 adults, 2 kids) just answer the following question in the comments below. What's the name of the main character in the film?

 

hot and bothered

...that's how some of our indian mangoes have been feeling of late.  When it comes to climate change, the majority of conversations still use words like 'when' - when it happens, when the temperature rises, when the seas rise etc.  Of course the reality is that our climate is already changing, and more so in some regions than others at this point in time.  The Western Gatts of India is one of those regions, and that is where some of our delicious alphonso mangoes come from.

When our indian farmers started talking to us about the problems, we decided it was important to make sure we did our bit to help cool the mangoes down, and keep the farmers in the mango business.  Fast forward through many many conversations, and we had a set of recommendations from a local agricultural institute, a consultant and 18 farmers working with our supplier, ready to trial some new techniques in the world of mango growing.

We have just received the first report from the project, and despite only being able to implement 2 of the 5 techniques this season we have seen some great results. Farmers participating in the trial were able to use less agrochemicals on the trees and still managed to have a lower incidence of pest and disease attack than a standard farm (saving them lots of money as well as protecting the environment).  Plus, the trial farms also found that they had a higher yield of mangoes per tree.

Next season we will be implementing all 5 of the recommendations, and we are keeping our fingers crossed that we get even better results.  Needless to say the farmers participating in the project are pretty happy that they can still produce great mango in a changing climate (and save some cash at the same time), and we are thrilled that we still get great tasting mango and have managed to help out in tackling this challenge.

A big thanks to our suppliers, and everyone involved in the project so far.  I'm off to grab a mango passionfruit smoothie to celebrate.

New book competition winner

To celebrate the launch of our new book called "Hungry? The innocent recipe book for filling your family with good stuff",we announced a competition on Monday to give away 5 copies. Thanks to everybody who entered and answered the question - "What's your best parent trick to get kids eating fruit and veg?"

We could only pick 5 winners though. They are (drum please)....

Monica Duffy - "Get the kids to help you prepare the fruit/veg, just careful with the knives"

Sorcha King - "I think encouraging the children to grow the fruit and vegetables themselves, pick out the seed, sow them, take care if them and then et the fruit or vegetables when they are ready. Works great for getting adults to try new things too"

Roisin Stapleton - "Chop the vegetables they dont like up really small and then cover it in something they do like, I cover whatever they don't like in cheese and bake the cheese in the oven until golden brown, works every time"

Jaki - "Decorating pizzas with veg to make funny faces and pictures!"

Beatrise T - "Presentation is the key! Kids are more likely to eat their veggies if they are presented in fun shapes. Another thing that works is re-naming (for example broccoli could be re-named as 'giant's trees') or even implying superhero powers :) I don't have kids myself yet but this really worked for me. My mum told me that I will grow taller if I'll eat a lot of 'giant's trees'.. and I didn't want to be short :)"

We'll be in touch shortly.

Thanks again to everyone who entered. You can see previews of the book here if you're interested in picking up a copy yourself. 

 

 

 

 

 

hungry? try our new book

At the beginning of last year, innocent asked lots of people if they thought it would be a good idea to write a recipe book to feed families with good stuff (having written not one but two smoothie recipe books already).

Hundreds of mums and dads got in touch to say they thought it'd be a very good idea.

So here it is...

A guide to healthy, tasty, no fuss food that the whole family can enjoy (and that don't take ages to make)

It's filled with over 100 delicious, simple, healthy recipes (from 2 minute breakfasts to proper Sunday lunches) and over 85% of the recipes in the book contain at least 1 of your 5-a-day.

There are loads of tips and ideas for getting everyone involved in making, cooking and eating. We've even picked out the bits kids can do in a rather fetching grey to make it even easier.

And there's as loads of other stuff for kids to do, make and help out with to get them involved and excited about food. 

Or just keep them entertained while you're waiting for bread to bake or just need something to do on a rainy Thursday.

In other words, a book that makes it easy to get good stuff into your family. Without having to spend hours labouring over the stove, making different meals for everyone or faffing about with miniature sushi.

So to celebrate the launch of this very fine book, we're giving away 5 copies away to the 5 people who can best answer the following question. What's your best parent trick to get kids eating fruit and veg?  Post your answer in the comments below.

 

Or if you can't wait that long, you can buy yourself a copy right here.

Either way, we hope you like it and enjoy many a memorable meal and muffin from it.

 

Smoothie hamper give away

Everyone loves Friday.

Recently we've especially loved Fridays since they've been followed by bank holiday Mondays (we really think there should be more). But alas, we're back to the regular ol' two day weekend. To make up for this, we've decided to brighten up somebody's two day weekend with a smoothie hamper. How do I win you might be asking? Well all you have to do is answer this question in the comments below and we'll pick the winner and annouce the name on Monday.

Question - What's the name of our latest seasonal smoothie?

Hint: you might find the answer here.

Friday visitors

Fridays are pretty great. In fruit towers, our Friday was made even better by a visit from Dave and Tom Houben.

Dave and Tom were visiting Dublin from The Netherlands and dropped in to say hello. We chatted about all things fruit, super heroes and how stripes are so hot right now (see below).

 
Helen, Dave & Tom, some super hero smoothies and a giant ball of wool

Thanks to the lovely Dave and Tom for dropping in to brighten up our day. Call back any time.

Valentine's Day competition

This competition is now closed. Click here to see the winner.

Tell us how you're going to spend Valentine's Day in the comments below and the most creative answer will win some innocent mangoes and passion fruits smoothie goodies.

 

Thank you letter from Concern

Last year we blogged about the Haiti earthquake disastor and how Concern were in need of donations to help their work. Our wonderful blog and newsletter readers, (that's you) sprung into action and raised €5,695 for Concern which helped with their work on the ground in Haiti amidst the devastation and destruction casused by the earthquake. This week, Concern sent us a letter thanking us, and more importantly you, for your generous donations. Click on the image below to read the letter.

Click here if you'd like to donate to Concern's Haiti: One year on appeal and to see how Concern are continuing their good work in the area.