Influx

Many entrepreneurs go into the soft drink business dreaming of the day when one of the giants knocks on the door with a pile of cash. It happened to Izzie with Pepsi and now Innocent in the UK, has just sold a minority stake to Coca-Cola.

Innocent has become something of an icon in the world of marketing for its frank and human approach. It has a unique perspective on its customers and is committed to doing good.

When Innocent sold its products in McDonald’s, it came under fire from its customers, so clearly Coke’s purchase presents something of a potential nightmare.

However, they handle it in true Innocent style, explaining clearly the reasons for the deal and inviting customers to share their opinions.

Open and clearly dialog is critical in this environment, especially when people have brought into your brand for years because you’re an underdog.

“Hello.

Over the next few days you may read in the press about Coca-Cola
making a minority investment in innocent, and we wanted to tell our
drinkers and veg-potters about the deal and why it’s a great
opportunity for innocent.

Basically, we’re dead excited about the investment. The funds raised
allow us to do more of what innocent is here to do – get natural,
healthy stuff out to as many people as possible. And the money raised
is going into the business to fund our European expansion, so we can
get innocent out to more places (none of the cash is being paid out to
the shareholders; that desert island will just have to wait).

The three of us who set up the business will continue to run and
manage innocent. We will be the same people making the same products in
the same way. Everything that innocent stands for, remains in place –
to only produce natural, healthy stuff; to push hard for better
quality, more socially and environmentally conscious ingredients; to
find more efficient and environmentally friendly ways of producing and
packaging our drinks; to support charities in the countries where our
fruit comes from; to have a point of view on the world, and to not take
ourselves too seriously in the process. In fact, this deal will simply
allow us to do more of these things.

As we said, Coca-Cola is a minority investor. They have a small
stake of between 10-20%, which they paid 30 million pounds for. We chose Coca-Cola as our minority investor because as well as
providing the funds, they can help us get our products out to more
people in more places. Plus, they have been in business for over 120
years, so there will be things we can learn from them. And in some
small ways we may be able to influence their thinking too.

innocent is ten years old this year. We sold 24 smoothies on our
first day, back on 28th April 1999. This week, we will sell
approximately 2 million. It’s taken a lot of hard work and not a small
degree of luck to get us this far, but fundamentally the thing that has
made it all possible has been the support of our retailers, suppliers,
the media, and most importantly, you – our consumers. So, as the next
chapter for innocent unfolds, and as we step up our mission of getting
natural, tasty healthy things to eat and drink to more people, we want
to say a sincere thank you to everyone who has ever bought an innocent
smoothie. Without you, we’d just have an expensive fruit crushing hobby.

Thanks and bye for now.

Adam, Jon and Richard
Co-founders
innocent

PS As always, we’d love to hear what you think, so email richardr@innocentdrinks.co.uk with any thoughts or questions.