Innocent sells minority stake to Coca-Cola

by Sarah Crawley-Boevey, Brand Republic 06-Apr-09, 14:45

LONDON - Innocent, the ethical, healthy smoothie brand, has sold a £30m stake in its company to fizzy drinks giant Coca-Cola in a move that its owners say will help finance European expansion.

The controversial move, which has some people questioning Innocent's claims to be ethical, amounts to between 10 and 20% of the company.

In a statement, the three founders of Innocent, who still run the company and are celebrating 10 years of the firm this month, attempted to allay customers' fears by saying the deal would help Innocent learn from the market leaders, as well as helping them "get innocent out to more places".

Co-founder Richard Reed said: "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."

He added that everything Innocent stands for, including the push for better quality, the use of more socially and environmentally conscious ingredients and to support charities in the countries where their fruit comes from, still stood.

He said: "In fact, this deal will simply allow us to do more of these things."

In 2007, Innocent came under fire from some quarters when it struck a deal which saw McDonald's sample Innocent Smoothies in a range of Happy Meals.

Comments

A DIAZ - 06/04/2009

You know Coca-Cola aren't quite the devil they are made out to be. At least they run honest pitches!

werwr wrwerwewr - 07/04/2009

It was just a few weeks ago that the proposal was published and it was crystal clear that the deal would go through, as the ambitious "innocent" founders want to expand their over-priced healthy juice. I am not sure if I entirely agree with the ethical statement about the company, however I appreciate their business model. Principles of ethics are too far difficult to practice these days but extremely easy to talk about it and claim to be one. Only time will prove although in many cases we just need to trust our gut feelings and appreciate common sense to establish whether one's claim is genuine.

Kirsty Carey - 07/04/2009

Why are we Brits obsessed with underdogs? Why do we equate success and expansion with corruption of ethics? Surely, this is a triumph for socially and environmentally conscious products over old super brands. We should be celebrating them not knocking them.

John Gallen - 07/04/2009

"Innocent sells minority stake to Coca-Cola" and that was the end of Innocents' respectability. Mr Diaz, take a look at Coca Cola's history in South America and the death of trade union members; then look at some of the small shanty towns in Africa left with no drinking water; then look at the small towns in India left with no water at all.... I guess I'll never work on a pitch like that again, thankfully.

werwr wrwerwewr - 07/04/2009

Agree with John! I'm happy to see people like yourself are still in business can see the things through the lines.

Matt Rodriguez - 07/04/2009

Suprised this hasn't happened sooner, they both win. Personally i've never bought into innocent as a wholly ethical company but they make more of an effort than most others. Coca Cola with their poor record will be able to show themselves in a more positive light while innocent can increase their clout as a brand. They're both successful businesses who i suspect will become more succesful as a result of this.

Matt Wardle - 08/04/2009

Not so innocent anymore. Not sure about how wise this was from a brand point of view, I always liked innocents claim of ' guys just making juice' for the love of it ;). I'm sure much of their market base is consumers drinking the stuff trying to share the love \(most of it tastes bloody awfu, esp the water??) . Short term - growth across new territory. Long term - Brand loyalty out of the window and an exodus of faux tree huggers.