A ruling by the ASA has confirmed that Innocent smoothies can count for two of your 5-a-day as each 250ml serving contains the crushed pulp and the juices of two portions of different types of fruit. The review of Innocent's two-portion claim was commissioned following several complaints about an advert that first ran in June this year.

The ruling was supported by the Department of Health, which earlier this year updated its guidelines to recognise that smoothies can count for up to two of your 5-a-day.

The DH's 5-a-day website states: "Smoothies may count as a maximum of two of your 5-a-day where they contain both pure 100% fruit juice and all of the edible pulped fruit and/or vegetable one portion is defined as at least 150ml of fruit juice or 80g of fruit or vegetable."

A 250ml Innocent smoothie counts as two portions of fruit as it contains both 80g of crushed fruit and 150ml of pure juice, or more than 80g of crushed fruit with the remainder of the second portion from juice.

This is good news for retailers as now all the key nutritional bodies (The Food Standards Agency, The British Nutrition Foundation, the Department of Health and the ASA) agree that certain smoothies can count as two portions towards people's 5-a-day consumers can be assured that Innocent's smoothies are an easy and tasty way to help people reach their 5-a-day target. As this news reaches consumers we expect to see an increase in demand for smoothies.

Dave Pickup, commercial director,Innocent Drinks