As some of you more dilligent readers may have noticed, I have a small fetish for Innocent fruit drinks. However, as I previously reported, they’ve gone through a patch of, well, pissing their customers off. This was initially due to them selling their products in McDonalds on a trial basis, which I have no problem with whatsoever.

However, on Monday Mum pointed out to me an article in the Daily Telegraph which mentions that:

The company has re-branded its Innocent Juicy Water product and launched This Water, a range of flavoured waters. The new business may be spun off if successful but for now Innocent is heavily involved.

And though six teaspoons of sugar go into every 420ml bottle, one wouldn’t know it from reading the label, where the list of ingredients reads simply, “some sugar”. Douglas Lamont, heading up the new range, insists that witholding the fact that sugar represents up to 10 per cent of each bottle is “not misleading”.

Now, I’d love to be able to know what is happening with this, but at the moment they’ve not posted anything on their blog about it, so I’m sort of fearing the worst unfortunately. I’m sure theres a reason for it (if it is true), but I’m slightly worried… They’ve said that This Water may be spun off, however I see it as being an “Innocent” brand at the moment, and so there should be “nothing but nothing but fruit”, and no added nasties. Granted, sugar is nowhere near as bad for you as some additives, but more simply, why didn’t they tell us about it?

I always thought Innocent was such a transparent company, particuarly after the MaccyD scenario, however I am starting to get a bit worried that they’re going back on promises they’ve made to their consumers. Watch this space is all I can say really.

Those lovely people over at Innocent have announced today that their Juicy Water range will cease to exist in a few weeks, instead of deciding to create a new brand, “This Water”.

It seems like a good idea to have a seperate brand for the juicy waters and Innocent smoothies, and if its successful could possibly lay the way for more new “Innocent” brands - like their range of thickies I have always felt look a bit out of place - if they took their time they could expand them into a wider range of “innocent” brands. Just a thought, and I’m sure it won’t happen, but it could work out.

Whilst I like the brand image (well, what we can see of it), I’m not so sure that I like the name, but I’m sure in a few months it will become more natural to talk about it with friends… “oh, I’ll just nip into Waitrose and pick up some this water” doesn’t seem that natural at the moment. But then neither does a student shopping at Waitrose….