Cranberries and Raspberries (Innocent Cranberries and Raspberries Smoothie)

Member Name: Whizz11

Product:	Innocent Cranberries and Raspberries Smoothie
Date:	28/01/09 (322 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Tastes great, lots of fruit, natural

Disadvantages: None

So good, they're innocent!!

"Europe's favourite little juice company".

Innocent Smoothies in my opinion are probably the best shop bought smoothies around and one of my favourite flavours is the Cranberries and Raspberries variety.

Innocent Drinks are a UK based company who specialize in producing fruit smoothies and also flavoured waters. The story of Innocent Smoothies is a really interesting one. It was founded by three Cambridge graduates in the late 1990's. Apparently according to an article I read about them, they first sold their drinks at a music festival in London. They asked people to essentially vote on their product. If they liked it they were asked to put their empty bottle in a bin marked "yes", if they didn't then there was a bin marked "no". At the end of the festival the "yes" bin was so full that they quit their jobs and started growing their company. It turned out to be a brilliant move as Innocent has a 71% share of the UK smoothie market and sells two million smoothies per week!! Apparently in each of the last four years Innocent has more than doubled its revenue!!

I think the reason they called their company Innocent is the fact that they are pretty innocent, virginal even, in the products they put in their drinks - 100% pure and fresh fruit, no sugars, no water, no concentrates. Each fruit smoothie contains three-quarters of a pound of fruit which is your recommended daily intake, a perfect way of getting your 5 a day! I like this variety because it contains a lot of red coloured fruit which are my favourite. The drink itself is a nice dark deep berry colour. It is quite thick and tastes packed full of fruit which is nice. This one has a lot of little raspberry pips in it which to me tells you that it definitely contains real fruit and in fact it really does seem like you are drinking big portions of fruit. The flavour combination works really well together, the fruits are not sharp together or anything.

The full ingredients of this drink are listed as:

53 crushed cranberries and some freshly squeezed lime, 14 crushed raspberries, half a squeezed orange, 2 and a half pressed apples and half a mashed banana. I love the fact that they are so precise on the amount of cranberries/raspberries. To me it sounds like a bit of a joke in that they have counted each fruit individually but it's nice to know that there are a lot of them in there!

I bought the little one serving bottle of the drink which is 250ml but you can also buy the smoothies in 1 litre cartons as well which is nice. I think the 250ml is the prefect size though, great for a breakfast drink or a quick snack and I like to finish them when they have first been opened because they stay nice and fresh which is good. On the front of the packaging is a cartoon fruit character with a halo over the top, depicting the innocent look. The character is red in colour to depict a red based drink. TO me the little character almost looks like a cranberry or raspberry!

The packaging also comes with a guarantee that the smoothie will taste food and do you good and a promise that no artificial flavours or any weird stuff will be included in their drinks.

Once you open the drink they do recommend that you consume it within 2 days because there is fresh fruit in it that will go off. I generally always drink the little bottles in one go but the cartons obviously take a little bit longer to drink. I do find that they are the best the very first time you open them as the fruit is at its best but the second taste they are fine. Any longer than that and I generally do not finish it as I am wary about keeping things fresh.


These are also not too high in calories either which is a great bonus. For example a 250ml bottle of the cranberries and raspberries has 46 calories in it, not bad at all and considering how much fruit and good stuff you are getting them they are well worth it. It also contains less than 0.1g of fat. Generally each 250m bottle sells for approximately £2+ so, ok they are a little expensive but they are a great quality product with costly ingredients and considering all the goodness you are getting I would say they are definitely worth it and a product I definitely recommend.

Summary: Innocent Smoothie with Cranberries and Raspberries