Innocent Drinks has been going for about seven years now and the concept of selling healthy smoothies seems obvious today. But back then it must have been a huge risk. How confident were you that you were on to something big?
When we started as just three guys in a bedroom, all we could really say for certain was that we had a need for smoothies in our daily lives, and so did our friends. Juice bars were all the rage in the US and there were five or six opening in London, each in a mass of publicity. But setting up a juice company, as opposed to a juice bar, was quite different. Everyone from the people we were working with to my own parents were saying ’Rich, are you sure that you‘ve got this right?‘ Of course I wasn‘t, but we were intent on giving it a go.

The main selling point of your products is the fact that it‘s 100% natural and all comes from fresh fruit. How convinced were you that that was the right approach, with all the implications in terms of cost, storage and shelf-life?
We were absolutely 100% convinced that going down the natural route was the right thing to do. We wanted to offer a totally natural drink that was free from concentrates, additives and flavourings, and was an easy way for people to do themselves some good. Following industry norms and adding stabilisers and additives to extend shelf-life was something we were, and still are, dead against. We buy fruit straight from the growers and have absolutely no intention of messing around with what nature provides.

We just started messing around with fruit in my kitchen. Our first three recipes were strawberries and bananas; mangoes and passion fruits; and oranges, bananas and pineapples. A couple of years ago, we introduced the guest smoothie and the seasonal smoothie which gave us a chance to experiment with interesting ingredients and try out new combinations. We launched the first ever beetroot smoothie a couple of years ago and another with lemongrass back in March, both of which were very popular. Our newest ingredient is a Brazilian berry called Acai. It‘s a new ’superfood‘ and has double the level of anti-oxidants of blueberries.

You set up Innocent Drinks with Adam Balon and Jon Wright. How did you come to meet and how difficult has it been to go from friends to business partners? Do you all still get on?
We‘ve been best mates since we met at university in Cambridge. We were all really keen to start our own business and there was no question that we‘d take the plunge together. Doing this together has given us an even stronger relationship. In fact, we‘ve even just been on holiday together.

You famously asked customers at a festival if you should give up your very respectable day jobs by asking them to put empty bottles in bins marked ’yes‘ and ’no‘. But how hard was it to get the company up and running, and was there a point where you thought you might not make it?
When the 10th bank manager we went to turned us away, we really began to think that it wasn‘t going to happen. Also, at one point early on we‘d pretty much run out of money and our last cash was spent on a load of strawberries which then got stuck in the pipes and had to be washed away. That was pretty depressing. But you get through these things and, after emailing our mates to ask them if they knew anyone rich, we found an investor called Maurice Pinto who really bought into the idea, and here we are today.

When did you really start to believe this was going to work?
Really from the first day when we had 24 bottles in a little shop in Notting Hill. When it shut, we piled up a load of milk crates to peer into the window and see if any had been sold. And all the bottles had gone. It was a fantastic feeling.

Tony Blair even invited you to Downing Street last year to discuss how people can start successful businesses. That must have felt quite surreal: a then 32-year-old not long out of college lecturing the prime minister on enterprise?
Yes, and to be honest it still does feel a bit surreal sometimes.

You‘ve now moved into other areas such as ’thickies‘ and ’juicy waters‘. Which products are the most successful?
Both these lines are doing really well but the smoothies are still at the core of our business. Last year we launched our ’smoothies for kids‘ and they‘ve been a phenomenal success. It‘s shocking to see how little fruit so-called fruit drinks actually contain. Until our smoothies for kids, there was absolutely nothing made from 100% pure fruit for kids on the market.

Can you tell me a bit about the ’super smoothie‘? Is this for people who want to be ultra-healthy?
We asked our consumers what they wanted next and they said sometimes they felt they wanted a smoothie to help them with a specific need such as coming down with a cold or having a bit of a hangover. So our super smoothie range uses fruit that are naturally high in anti-oxidants, vitamin C and other nutrients to deliver natural extra benefits.