The gloves are off in the juices and smoothies category. Ever since Innocent moved into chilled juice in 2010, it has been eroding Tropicana’s market-leading position with a relentless bombardment of promotions. So ferocious has the onslaught been that today, its juice business is more than treble the size it was a year ago and poised to break through the £100m mark [SymphonyIRI 52 w/e 8 December 2012].

There are also suggestions that with its guns trained firmly on Tropicana, Innocent has taken its eye off the ball in its smoothies business. Smoothies sales have slumped 11.2% [Kantar Worldpanel 52 w/e 25 November 2012], with the bulk of those losses suffered by Innocent. In fact, in a case of role reversal, it is PepsiCo’s Naked brand that has wrestled some share from Innocent, having more than doubled its sales in the past year, albeit from a much smaller base.

So just how sustainable are Innocent’s tactics and what can juice and smoothie suppliers do to remain competitive?