Coca-Cola invests £30m for minority stake in smoothie firm innocent

Apr 7 2009 by Henryk Zientek, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

“We have long admired their brand, their products and their unique approach to business.

“Our investment will support innocent in helping more consumers enjoy their products and for the business to expand across Europe.”

Earlier this year, Mr Reed – with co-founders and fellow Cambridge University graduates Adam Balon and Jon Wright – were ranked second in the list of Management Today’s Top 100 Entrepreneurs.

The three entrepreneurs started by selling smoothies made from fresh fruit juice at a jazz festival in the summer of 1998.

They put up a sign asking customers: “Do you think we should give up our day jobs to make these?” and put out reply bins labelled “yes” and “no.”

At the end of the day the “yes” bin was full, so the three launched innocent as a going concern.

The London-based company has doubled in size in each of the past three years to notch up annual sales of £115m and dominate the market for smoothies with a 72% share.

Last year, the company launched in Austria after expanding into Germany, Scandinavia and France.

That followed a £32m finance deal from Bank of Scotland to take its fruit smoothies and fruit juice drinks into new markets in Europe and the USA.