Food & Beverage Focus Innocent Drinks
Smooth operator
Manufacturing & Logistics IT spoke with Innocent Drinks’ head of business
delivery, Giles Carter, and planning manager Tom Oliver, about the company’s rise to prominence in the UK and European ‘smoothie’ drinks market, and about the IT engine that helps manage and drive business and operational success.
B 6
ack in 1998 three college friends, Adam Balon, Richard Reed and Jon Wright decided to set up a business together. That summer they took some of their ‘smoothie’
fruit juices to a local jazz festival to try out their idea. They put up a sign above their stall asking ‘Do you think we should give up our jobs to make these smoothies?’ Drinkers were asked to vote by putting their empty bottle into a bin saying ‘Yes’ or a bin saying ‘No’. At the end of the weekend, the ‘Yes’ bin was full so Balon, Reed and Wright went to work the
MANUFACTURING &LOGISTICS
IT July 2011
next day and resigned. After a year of R&D and with a private investor on-board, the first ever Innocent smoothies went on sale in April
“
In essence, we wanted to ensure that both the business and operational side of our business were ‘singing from the same hymn sheet.” – Tom Oliver, Innocent Drinks.
1999 in the founders’ local sandwich shop called ‘Out to Lunch’. Since then, Innocent has grown to secure an 80 per cent UK
market share in the smoothie market and now turns over in excess of £100 million per annum. Innocent’s team has expanded substantially over the years; from the 3 original founders to over 250 people based across the Fruit Towers offices in London, Paris, Dublin, Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Hamburg and Salzburg.
The IT backbone behind Innocent is largely focused on ensuring all parties – the company’s own commercial and supply departments, together with its many third-
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