Innocent Drinks has named Nicki Garland as the new MD of its UK & Ireland business.
She succeeds John Taylor, who is set to move on to a new role as GB franchise operations senior director at Coca-Cola. Taylor only became MD for UK&I at Innocent Drinks in June 2024, following the departure of Sam Akinluyi.
Garland takes on the UK&I MD role after 10 years in the Innocent business, starting in the UK&I finance team, moving up to lead it before taking over strategy and planning during Covid. More recently, she led the juice supplier’s European commercial finance team.
Before joining Innocent, Garland spent six years in finance roles at Tesco.
“It’s a real privilege to lead such a brilliant brand with so much heart and ambition,” she said.
“I’m excited to build on our strong foundations and to continue to grow to bring innocent’s mission – to make it easier to live well through the delicious goodness of fruit & veg – to life.”
Sales at Innocent Drinks’ parent company Fresh Trading Ltd climbed 6.3% to £452.9m in the year ended 31 December 2023 – the latest available accounts at Companies House published in January 2025 showed.
Operating losses, meanwhile, fell by more than 90% back to £3.7m following a £41.3m pre-tax loss in 2022.
In 2022, the company suffered from ramp-up costs at its £200m Rotterdam factory ‘The Blender’, which were exacerbated by soaring input inflation and pressure on consumer spending.
In 2023 it more successfully mitigated these pressures through “efficiencies, supply chain management and responsible price increases”.
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