Richard Reed
Richard Reed left advertising to set up a fresh fruit juice business with two friends.
Famously they set up a stall at a music festival selling smoothies. They set up a banner saying “Should we give up our jobs and do this full time?” and had two bins for the empty cups, labelled Yes and No. By the end of the festival the Yes bin was full, the No practically empty, and the rest is history.
Within a few years they had grabbed over 30% ‘share of throat’. Notwithstanding the success of Innocent and masses of good publicity, Richard’s philosophy centres on simplicity, caring about the product, involving the workforce, focusing on detail and listening to criticism.
He sold a stake in the business to Coca Cola in 2013 and is continuing to grow the business in a variety of ways.
Richard is a regular contributor to the media and has spoken at the IoD convention at the Royal Albert Hall in London.
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