Richard Reed

Richard John Reed, (born 13 February 1973) is a British businessman, entrepreneur and public speaker. He is the co-founder of Innocent Drinks (founded in 1999 ), an international company producing fresh fruit smoothies and vegetable pots sold in various outlets around the world, and of Jamjar Investments (founded 2012). He pioneered "wackaging" – quirky messages on packaging – of products such as smoothies.

Biography Richard Reed was born in 1973 in Kirkheaton, West Yorkshire, and grew up in Mirfield. after which he worked as an account manager in an advertising agency for four years. In 1998, with fellow Cambridge graduates Adam Balon and Jon Wright, he set up a smoothie and drinks company called Innocent Drinks, initially operating from a market stall. Reed said in an interview with The Financial Times: "After we left our jobs, we had no cash – just one month's salary each that we tried to eke out for two months. We each ran up debts of about £15,000 from overdrafts and credit cards.... It took us four years before we were back to earning £40,000 – the same salary that we had left." and co-founder of the Innocent Foundation and in 2012 of JamJar Investments.

He is the author of If I Could Tell You Just One Thing...Encounters with Remarkable People and Their Most Valuable Advice (Canongate Books, 2016, ),

At the 2016 Queen's Birthday Honours, Reed was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) for services to the food industry and to charity.

Reed resides in West London.