Here are the full text transcripts for all of the questions asked and answeres given in our 2009 innocent AGM Q&A.

Innocent now make veg pots. Are there any other healthy products you're thinking of making, like fruit salad pots or desserts?

We're definitely going to carry on making more healthy products. We haven't got salad pots on the list at the moment, I don't think, but there's... As we start from those four ingredients of fruits, vegetables, wholegrain and dairy, we think there are so many thing we can do - stuff that's for the chiller, stuff that's for the freezer - everything is always going to be healthy. Days like today really, really help. I was speaking to some guys just before. We don't do those little research groups just for the sake of it. All the best ideas come from it. The most successful product launches we've had have come from speaking to the people that buy our products and asking them what's next. If there's a healthy product you think we could make that we don't then definitely let us know because we sure as hell want to know what you guys want more of.

Are you going to do a range of fruit juices to accompany the orange, so sort of apple and other flavours?

I think we will. We've started with orange and we're... As we were saying, it was a bit of a slow start, but now that's really beginning to get away. I think probably apple will be next in the range. We're looking at other combinations as well, so maybe apple and pomegranate, again, whatever people ask and want from us.

Are there regional differences into what you sent out where, and country differences?

Like you're thinking of expanding to Europe, the world, the earth, space, Mars, whatever; is there regional differences in England, Scotland and Ireland, or do you just send all the products to everywhere? Across the UK we're pretty much selling the same products everywhere and they seem to sell in pretty much the same sort of ratio. I guess across on the continent there are differences. There are slight differences on the continent. I mean I'm stereotyping slightly but the French tastes tend to be slightly sweeter, so pineapples, bananas, coconuts, that sort of recipe does really well, whereas in Germanic countries like Austria and Germany the sourer tastes are better. Those are slight differences. Frankly, it's trial and error. We try something and if they don't work we swap it for something else.

Do you consider introducing a subscription scheme so I could give you money by direct debit every month and you send me a load of vouchers for smoothies and veg pots so that when I get towards the end of the week and I'm considering being a little bit less healthy, I can look in my purse and go 'Actually, I've got a load of vouchers. It will be almost free to get something healthy, versus putting my hand in my pocket to go and get a pizza or whatever.'

I think that's an awesome idea. The answer is yes, we're definitely... If you'd like to give us a cheque before you leave then we'll... How many people would do that? We could see how you could do that. You could do it online and send vouchers out. Would anyone want to buy smoothie vouchers?

A lot of people I know know I'm here. I've actually lost a friend because I'm here because he so fundamentally disagrees with what Coke stands for. I haven't actually bought an Innocent product since the announcement was made. I've just been sitting on the fence, not knowing what to do really. I came here today wanting to hear from all of you and to go away with something that I could rationalise it. It's something I can takeaway from the session to say to somebody who says 'How can you buy those products now when they are partially owned, if only a little bit, by a company that has such an appalling record on human rights?' What can I say to those people? Have you got anything for me that I can say to those people?

Before they answer that question, we do have another question from a consumer about that subject, so if we could read that out and then they could answer it all at the same time, is that alright? Where's Georgia? Right behind there. If you could read that question out for us, please.

This question is on behalf of someone called Mia. Is it true you have sold a portion of your company to Coca Cola? If so, do you not think the ethics of such a company are at odds with your own?

We should all chip in on this one. Firstly, thank you very much for coming, especially as you feel like we've let you down in some way. Extra special thanks to you for coming and asking the question. There's no question you guys can ask that we won't answer. We can talk about the coke stuff, you know, it's out there in the public space. We wouldn't have done it if we didn't think it was the right thing. I guess that's the headline. We had an opportunity with the business to get it into Europe. It's a great opportunity, but it's very expensive and we weren't going to be able to make the most of that opportunity without raising funds. So I guess that's the going in point - we needed to do a fundraising project. We went out to the market and spoke to lots and lots of different potential investors. We started the fundraising on the day Leemans went under, so we're in fundraising at a pretty tough time, but there's still a lot of people interested because of Innocent, because of the products we make, and people see the long term potential for the business. We did get differing offers.

Quite early on it became clear that these guys were definitely giving us the best offer. What it is, of all the people we met, they were definitely the most smart and the most honest people to deal with, so we were really, really... We really enjoyed meeting and spending time with them. They were really decent folks. The second thing is they were pretty much unique, and so they were prepared to put money into the business with no strings attached. One of the other potential investors said 'We'll put the money in, but you're going to have to stop donating cash to charity.' Another one said 'We'll put the money in, but you're going to have to let us take control of the business.' Coke's position was 'We really love the brand, we love the products, we love the philosophy, we love all the stuff that you do that you're famous for. We don't quite understand how you do it, so we're going to absolutely leave it as a standalone business. You can run it and do it the way you see fit, but we'd like to be able to put the money in so that you can carry on and get to the next stage.'

We of course did a boat load of due diligence. Working out who you're going to take an investment from is the single biggest decision we've had to make over the last ten years. We looked into all the accusations. We spoke to people about it. We spoke to the Coke guys. We spoke to the NGO sector. A good friend of mine runs Greenpeace here in the UK. We spoke to a wide variety of different people. We got extremely comfortable ourselves that it's a decent business, that the people in it are decent folks, and the company overall is a responsible company. They have definitely made mistakes in the past. They will make mistakes in the future. The same is absolutely true of us. I think they've got a good track record f when they screw up in some way they do then make good and learn from it, and move on. So for us the fact that we did business with the people, not with the logo, the people that we met were really decent and honest. They put cash in with no strings attached, when everyone else was wanting to sort of direct the business away from what our ideals were, and the fact of course they've given us the opportunity to accelerate the business, they can introduce us to customers in Europe, and so on, and so forth.

Getting comfortable with all those accusations, realising that behind what some of the media images will be there is a different set of stories to be told about that business, and the last thing I want to do is sit here and be a representative of Coca Cola, because I'm not. We don't work for them. They're a separate business and we're a separate business. They're just a minority funder in it. There were some things that really surprised us in our due diligence. One is that they give a lot of money to charity, which they never talk about. So in 2007 they gave a hundred million dollars to charity and sought no publicity in the background. The second thing is they have the largest HIV programmes for employees than any business in the world. The third is they got voted the fourth most ethical corporation in the world by an independent body. Their accusations about Columbia, human rights, all that sort of stuff, the International Labour Organisation investigated and said there was no incidents of human rights abuses. In every single court of law it was thrown out as having absolutely no substantiation. The trade unions involved, the actual leader said there was no truth to the allegations. So there's a tremendous amount of other perspectives.

Now, I massively respect the differing points of view out there. That's why we put it on the blog so that everyone can have their say. We're not saying it's a perfect business, but we are saying it's a decent business full of ordinary people that we related to, that were allowing us, most importantly, to do what we said we were about: fresh, healthy food and drink, get it to more people, sustainably sourcing those ingredients, giving more money to charity. That cash coming in simply allows us to do more of those things rather than less. So for us it was just an entirely positive experience and opportunity to do more of what Innocent is here to do. We're always going to respect the differing views of people out there and I can't get to everyone and persuade everyone, and neither should we. We're going to stick to doing what Innocent is about. Our promises are fresh, natural and healthy, sustainably sourced, money to charity. All of that remains. The three guys who started the business continue to lead it. Everyone that is at Innocent continues to be in it - same people, same products. For us, we get to do more of the things that Innocent is here to do.

If that's the case, what's in it for Coca Cola?

The short answer to that is money. They're a business. They've made an investment. Nobody makes an investment without wanting that investment to go up in value. So they look at Innocent in terms of what we do. We make natural, fresh, healthy products, in a world where people are increasingly aware of the importance of healthy eating. They see the potential for Innocent in Europe. They're hoping, like with any investment, the value of that investment goes up. So I'm not trying to make out that here's a business that's acting as if it's a charity. It's not. It's a business acting rationally. We should never criticise a business for doing what businesses do. So they put the money in because they believe in the people, the brand, the opportunity, the philosophy, the ethics, the whole what you see of what Innocent is, and they think it's going to continue to be more and more successful going forward.

My name is Colin and I'm from Brighton. The students constantly have a go at me or tell me off for getting to know these scientific decision-making models, so they have to use decision trees and matrix, and we're about as popular as cold porridge. Anyway, this is from Lauren who is sixteen. They asked me to ask a real life business is there techniques like that you use yourselves, for example, when you're trying to decide whether to go with veg pots or not? Is there something that you use?

Do we use those sorts of things. This guy here is going to answer that question. I guess the great thing about business is it's a real mix of a lot of things. Half the time you're running with your gut, you know, what people tell you, what you think. There's that kind of pace that means you've got to make decisions and move on. On the other hand, there are big decisions that you can rationalise, that you can put a framework around and think of it in that way. Certainly, when you're in the operational and supply chain area, and you're trying to work out the best place to source a fruit from, and the trade off of this versus that, you know, you can kind of put it in that matrix, or grid, or tree, to help you do it. But when you're thinking about what the next product is, or what you write on your label, or what colour something is going to be, then that has got to come from how you feel about it.

I'm Jamie and I'm from Loughborough. Have you thought about opening an Innocent shop?

Yes. I think it's an awesome idea. It's on the long list. The reality is our business is about... we have a whole team of agronomists, and food technicians, and recipe developers. It's all about finding the best fruits and vegetables so we can get the best recipes, and then selling those to supermarkets. To set up a chain of shops is a very different business model, but we definitely recognise that potential. I'd definitely love an Innocent place to go and hang out, so hopefully we'll get to it. It's definitely not on the short-term list, but it's there bobbing around on the long term. The other thing is we're an entrepreneurial business and so we always look at any ideas and opportunities seriously, so if anyone came to us and said 'we've got this idea,' and we'd want to do it properly, and they've got the experience and commitment to do it then you'd look at that, too. At the moment it's not on the plan, but hopefully at an AGM in the future we'll be able to show you the pictures of our new Innocent massage WiFi zone.

Which of the smoothies mix best with alcohol?

Mango and passion fruit goes well with tequila. Cranberry and raspberry with vodka.

I think it's great that you want to expand and move into Europe and the world, and I completely understand why you want to do that. One of the things that I love about Innocent is the fact that it still has that small business feel, and you organise things like this that we can come to and everyone feels part of it. Do you think it's possible to keep that when you're going to expand worldwide? Also, you get the impression that working here is really good fun and that it has that small community feel. Again, do you think you can keep that? If so, how?

I think it's a really good question. I think it's something that we asked ourselves very early on. After about two or three years, we suddenly thought 'Hang on, actually, things seem to be growing. There's no longer just three of us in a room, there seems to be ten of us. Actually, this is getting bigger than we thought it might do.' We thought, actually, can we be Innocent and can we be bigger at the same time? Is there a contradiction between those two things? I don't think there is. I think you can be Innocent, and keep that culture and feel, and be big. If you go to our little office in Paris... Hello. Attractive ladies all round. If you go to our Paris office, it's exactly the same tone and feel as you get here but just on a much smaller scale. I think you see the same feel if you go to Hamburg as well, so I'm really hopeful that we can. It's absolutely what we need to do. We have to do it to keep the culture and feel because that's what the business is, that's what the brand is, and that's what hopefully makes us more personal.

I believe that responsibility for the environment lies largely in the hands of companies like Innocent and would like to know if Innocent if pursuing earth friendlier farming for their fruits. What are you actively doing to achieve this?

Okay. Well, I guess, you know, responsibility for the environment, and the planet, and the earth rests with all of us, particularly as consumers in terms of the choices we make, and what products we buy, and what the impacts of those products are. So I guess that's the first thing. At Innocent we obviously make consumable products. The majority of them is fruit and that has an impact on the world around it. One of the most exciting things as we become a bigger company is that we've been able to have greater influence on what happens. When we started off, we had to kind of take the strawberries as we found them, as it were. But now we know that coming into the strawberry season we're going to be needing a thousand tonnes of strawberries, you can go and have a really great discussion with the growers of those strawberries about how you would like them to be grown, that you would like to have certain water management policies in place in that particular country, and so one of the great things that has come with scale is being able to have that positive influence and kind of nudge things, whether it's water with strawberries, or it's RFA with pineapple, or it's, you know, worker rights or whatever. You can begin to make those changes. The exciting thing is not finding a supplier who has incredibly high standards on this stuff, but finding a supplier who wants to have incredibly high standards on this stuff and doesn't know how to do it, and whether it's our team of agronomists helping them in terms of growing standards around water usage, or pesticide usage, or it's people from our sustainability team like Tom in terms of what are the standards they can operate in terms of environmental and social responsibility, and helping work with them and take them on that journey is the most exciting thing. It has been one of the areas of this business where we've invested a lot in the team. We've had a project over the last few years called 'Get closer to the fruit,' and that's all about building our agronomy expertise and our sustainability expertise and taking that out to our suppliers.

British fruit, especially the varieties that seem to be dwindling in our country, because they are very wonderful... when you go into the supermarkets, and even sometimes in the ordinary markets, it's very hard to get classic things like apples, or ripe pears, and blackcurrants you only see for a very short season. Would some of that involve making the most of British fruit and maybe encouraging them to bring it out a bit more so that we can see them and they won't dwindle away completely? I think if you as a big company would use them then maybe we would see them more in the general view of things. I think farmers tend to just churn things out nowadays and I think it's a shame.

I would agree. I think there are some really great varieties and great fruits out there. Over the last few years we've had a project called 'Project Hedgehog,' which has been all about an English fruit smoothie. Some of you will have seen it in autumn over the last couple of years with damsons, and blackcurrants, and elder flower, and apple, where we can get those English fruits out there. The story of the damson is one of those ones where it was a fruit that was enormously important in English agriculture as a native fruit and has pretty much petered out. We suddenly found with the damsons we were buying to go in this product it was like sixty percent of the UK damson production. That was having a real influence. It is tough to do because fruit growing is a slow process. It takes time for orchards or whatever to develop, so if we can have that influence then we will. We've actually tried very hard and just haven't got as far as we wanted to. So hopefully more of the hedgehog products, as it were, in the future.

I just wondered if you had anymore children's products going to come out because me and my friends are really interested in the new squeezy tubes and things like that for children and babies as well. Your products would be fantastic for them and it's a huge market.

I guess at the moment we've got our wedges, which, again, started as a... We'd started doing smoothies, and we'd been doing those for about five or six years, and a lady called Emma was working for us and she was head of NBT, and NBT was next big thing, what's the thing we ought to do after smoothies? So she was looking at lots of different things like soups, and sandwiches, and salads, and actually she completed her project and said 'Do you know what it is? It's smoothies for kids.' That's how our wedges started. That's been really successful for us, so we've gone into tubes and are beginning to think about more things. We're trying to think about a good juice product for kid at the moment, so whether it's juice and spring water so that it doesn't have too high a sugar content but also has a portion of fruit in the pack as well. I guess what we'd love to crack is a great way of doing veg, as well, to kids. If we can make veg as appealing as we can make fruit appealing, I think that would be a great product to do in terms of getting more fruit and veg out. So any ideas, anyone who has kids... I had my first seven months ago but she's a little young to tell me exactly what we should be making, but I'm waiting.

There's a lot of initiatives going in schools at the moment to promote healthy packed lunches, healthy school lunches, if that's possible. I mean our school is doing things like after school clubs, and exercise, and that kind of thing. Do you have any thoughts on maybe going in to sponsor that kind of thing or get involved with kids at that level?

I think now, you know, we're increasingly realising what... we've got these great products, and we need to be going out and engaging with kids on them. I know this year we're thinking about what we can do with that and whether there could be a kind of, you know, the Innocent vans gong round the schools, especially with the tube product, which is a great one to give out. Every now and again we do competitions where if the school wins we'll turn up with our dancing grass van, and it will dance in the playground and handout products, but maybe we should do a little more of it. I think it's a good idea.

Nigel wanted to know when are you going to do those Innocent teas we've all been waiting for?

That question came in and we didn't know... Did he mean like afternoon tea, and cake, and scones? We've done that today. I think he must mean fruit teas and tea drinks. Again, not on the active list of things to do at the moment, but we feel like as a business we're ten years in to at least thirty years of what we want to be doing with Innocent. We can't say what we are or aren't going to be doing in terms of specific things, but what we can say is it's always going to be natural, always going to be healthy, we're going to make damned sure it tastes nice and it's sustainably sourced. So that may or may not be something that comes out, but it's not for us to say. It's actually for what our consumers want, so we try as hard as we can to hear what people are pulling from us. If there's loads more people asking for Innocent teas then that's going to massively increase the likelihood of us doing them.

I was going to ask you how you get the views of children? It seems like lots of mums would want to buy things for children. How do you ask them what they like? Have they an AGM for little people?

We're really lucky there's Brackenbury School, which is just literally behind us there, so they get lots of visits from us. We literally go round there and start talking to the kids. We take the vans, give them free smoothies, and ask them for their views. Actually, kids are brilliant. They don't try and dress it up. They're like 'That's horrible. That's lovely.' You just totally get the answer. It's brilliant. The kids' video there was from the school we're adjacent to.

Hello, I'm from Surrey. You talked a bit about the beginning of the company and I was just interested to understand your backgrounds and how much of the Innocent success you think was the idea versus your business acumen?

Probably all idea. I guess we met at college and then went into different jobs, which we did for about three or four years before starting Innocent. There was certainly a bit there in seeing how companies worked and the fact you needed people who knew a bit about finance, and a bit about sales, and a bit about marketing. I think that was really useful, actually, just getting that basic grounding in how companies operate. I worked for a company called Bain that did project work in a lot of different companies and so I think that was good to see just how different organisations could be. There wasn't one way it could work. You could have a very strong culture and way of doing things. Yes, I found that kind of really useful. I worked at a place called McKenzie, another consultancy, and I found that really useful to help work out how you solve complex problems. Business is full of problems, and you're just trying to simplify it, and break it down, and come up with the answer, and that's what that taught me. At Virgin I went to work in the drinks business there. That taught me that you don't have to be formal to be successful in business. There's a real sort of, if you get a group of people that really believe in what they're doing then a lot of great stuff can happen. I think that is what I learnt from there. I think life is an accumulation of experiences and it all goes towards hopefully making a success of things. I used to work for an advertising agency and I think it taught me what not to do more than it taught me what to do. There was this sort of... I remember there being this meeting with a client about a product we were supposed to be writing adverts about, and they said this was the message and this thing we had to make the claim about, and I said 'But is it true?' They said 'No, but it's what consumers want to hear.' I thought, blimey, that is the worse way of running a business, where you create this artificial image. Again, we've got a long way to go to be the sort of company that we want to be, but we've always set out with Innocence for the reality and he image to be the same thing. We are what we say we are. Our products are natural, they are healthy, and all that type of stuff. The brand is very much a reflection of the people that work in the business, so for me I learnt from that to make the reality good rather than worry about the image and hopefully a good image will follow. As John was saying, I think there's three things you've got to get right with the business. You've got to come up with a good idea in the first place, it has got to be something that people actually genuinely want because they've got to hand over their hard earned cash to buy it, so that's the first thing. The second thing is then there is a tremendous amount of hard work, and good decisions, and persistence that is absolutely required. The third thing is there is definitely a big amount of luck. We've been an extremely lucky company for the last few years. We've had a tremendous amount of support from the economic environment, from the social trends that people are more aware of healthy eating these days, from our parents, from our families and friends in the early days, to the media being friendly towards us. There has been a tremendous amount of things that really helped that idea and that hard work pay off.

Are you going into different distribution methods other than the supermarkets? It's really difficult to get all the range in some places, so maybe local Tesco only stocks two different smoothies and one of them is gone, so maybe something like a milkman method where you can just say what you want and then it will get delivered.

I guess we're always trying to find the best ways to get our products out to market. We have actually tried with the milkman to get our product out there but it never seemed to be too successful. One of the things Coke are able to help us with is to do that distribution. It's very hard as a small business to get out and see a lot of outlets, and that's something they may be able to help us with, so it's one of the things that should help get more products out closer to people and not just in the supermarkets that have their own distribution, and therefore make it easier for a smaller company. If you have problems getting products in your area, let us know, you know. Give us your postcode and we'll try to get your local store to stock a few more. I've said that to someone else here today. I've got their details and hopefully we'll help them out. It's also unbelievable how responsive supermarkets are, you know, literally just your local one. If you ask to speak to the manager and say 'Where's that product I'm looking for,' they've only got to hear that once or twice and then they totally get on it and start ordering. I know this because my mum goes into the local branch of Sainsbury's in Huddersfield, which is our hometown. She's always berating the manager: 'Where's that new veg pot from Innocent?' They've got this amazing display of Innocent products in Huddersfield Sainsbury's. Just asking the individual store will increase the likelihood of them to remember to order it.

Is the global recession affecting your premium priced products? Secondary to that, if I may ask a slightly less serious question, historically companies which manage to get out of a recession are the ones that manage to innovate and come up with something very exciting, which helps them ride out the recession and then break into the market in a new way. I know you've always been an innovative company, but do you have something more exciting up your sleeves that you might tell us? Or maybe it's time to bring back the electric bat.

In terms of the serious part of your question, does the recession affect premium products; I think the recession affects all products on positives and negatives. Big capital goods, things like cars, flat screen TVs, people understandably think twice about buying in times like this. I certainly would do if I were thinking about it. In terms of our product, what we've got to do is just make sure that we're offering people great value for money the whole time and make sure people understand why they should buy smoothies. That's about they taste good and they're really healthy, so that's what we've spent the last year trying to do, trying to get people to understand those points, and also help a bit by increasing the level of promotion so that it makes it more affordable for everybody. You're absolutely right. I think the best way to get through a recession is to try and invest. Companies that do best in recessions are those that don't pull back, just keep going and say 'Right, let's come up with new stuff, more innovation, and let's keep the marketing going.' That's exactly what we're trying to do. I mean I think we've launched quite a few new things in the last couple of months, and hopefully as a result of the sessions today we'll be able to launch even more things, but that's definitely our plan to keep on going.

The other idea I had was whether there was any chance of Innocent vending machines, particularly for the work environment, because I know my employees would like something healthier than the normal chocolate and crisps you get in a vending machine, so I'll leave that one with you to think about. The question I was going to ask now was I did a marketing module when I was at college and we were told about the tattoo test, which is do your customers love you so much they'd tattoo your logo on their skin? Companies like Harley Davidson and Ravenswood Wine have cracked it. I wondered if you knew whether any of your customers had an Innocent tattoo.

There's a guy called Barry; he's a special friend of Rose. He's our first tattooist. He's got the dude on his...Is it his left or right bicep? I don't know that level of detail. Of course you don't. I have a feeling it is that arm. We're extremely lucky that we've got this really engaged group of people who support the business not just by buying the products but by giving so much positive energy back to it. We've had people turn up and celebrate their birthday parties here, and we had one guy came for his eightieth, didn't he, because he loved the business. He did.