smoothies

while having dinner at Telusha's apartment in London, Deven's other sister Divia started a conversation about a smoothie and juice company that started up within the past couple years and has a very unusual business model, something that she called a "hippy mentality." now, this became of great intrigue; to meet the british coefficient of our own creed of say, ben and jerrys (prior to their sell-out).

innocent drinks states quite clearly on their label to give them feedback, and lists their address prefaced with the statement "feel free to pop around." so we took them up on their open offer and went down to the headquarters. the workplace was quite unusual, with long astroturf "green grass" carpeting, full-glass conference rooms with "blah...blah...blah" etched on the glass panels, a lunch area with picnic tables indoors juxtapose 4 giant beanbag chairs (note the udders on the distribution trucks as well). all the while, we slugged down free smoothies and juices.

what was particularly interesting about the laid back atmosphere was the way that the work stations were integrated cross-departmentally; in other words, there would be an IT guy, sitting next to a marketing person, sitting next to a distribution person. i can see arguments from both sides of that coin, but i found it of notable interest. the large beach umbrellas above some of the desk workstations were attention grabbing as well. altogether a great off the beaten path diversion, that paid off again as we left their building and were asked to fill up a bag of smoothies for the road. cheers!