We let Mark off because he’s all the way down in Truro and Alison because she was on holiday but everybody else got roped in to some good countryside fun, or madness maybe?

About 1200 people a few dogs and kids showed up in skimpy shorts and woolly hats. The race was four and three quarter miles through the rivers and over fields in the Derbyshire peak district. The start was delayed by 15 minutes which probably was the scariest bit as we all began to wonder if we didn’t get hypothermia would the really competitive sorts trample us into the mud once the start whistle blew?

But somehow we were off and dashing downhill towards the river like people possessed. Hayley landed upside down in the mud within the first 30 secs and Andrew managed to lose a shoe in the bog just a little after that.
We then had to wade thigh high through the river and run on in squelching shoes. Nice.
But once you’re wet and muddy it all seemed like good clean exhausting fun. 

It was really awesome (ok, and a little disheartening) to see how many fit kids were out taking part and beating us round the course. The last uphill climb to the finish line was like running up a water slide but we made it and finished up 324, 360, 705, 706 out of 1200 so we were quite happy with that for a first dash attempt. So we’re really sorry we don’t have muddy photos of us all to prove we did it because Janny forgot the camera but here’s what the race looks like….

We’re thinking of doing another one this weekend ‘leg it round Lathkil’ so if you’re round our way come and join in.  If you have an event you think we should try tell us about it!

We will be attending the BBC Good Food Show 2008 at the NEC Birmingham from the 26th to the 30th of November.

Come along and meet us! we would love to have a chat with you and let you have a taste of all our juicy fruits you’ve been wanting to try.
We are bringing along our new Golden Kiwi which is super healthy for you. By the way did you know that the golden Kiwi has smooth skins that you can eat? That’s why we dry them with their skins on so you get even more vitamins and a ‘nice crunch’ to help you dodge the biscuit tin.

Hope to see you there!

Just a quick note to let you know that Urban Fresh Fruit will be attending the Lunch Festival 2008 on the 26th and 27th of September.

The event takes place at Old Billingsgate, London.

We will be there with a variety of tasty fruit treats and we look forward to seeing you then!

Weather aside it was a really cool weekend filled with some slightly crazy events like welly wanging, knitting, ferret racing, duck herding and morris dancing. All of these lovely English pursuits left our Aouth African Andrew looking a bit baffled but he entered the spirit in day 2 by declaring he was going into the 5pm welly wanging heat with a mission to win. He even decided he was going to have an early morning practice with our wellies before the start of the fete. Unfortunately, so many of you came to taste our fruit that he missed out on his moment of glory. Never mind there’s always next year.

There was a nice tea tent which is a must for any English fete and some really cool other stuff like a literary tent that we really wish we’d got to spend some time in too.

It was really nice to meet you all and if you bought some of our tasty fruit we hope you love it as much as we do. If you went to the fete, how about sending us your photos to put on this blog? and if you didn’t you need to think about putting it in your diary for next year.
Thanks to all the folks at innocent for a lovely English fete!

You can see more photos from the day by clicking here and visiting our Facebook page!

so after being asked by various people whether we have or not,  we’ve decided to join the ever burgeoning world of social networking and we’ve made ourselves a Facebook page.

You can become our friend on Facebook by clicking here.

By clicking on that link you can get a sneak peek at the design feel of our brand new big bag packaging, which is all very exciting.

Hope you’re well and thanks in advance.

So if we met you at the taste festival 2 weeks ago sorry we didn’t catch up since then but it was nice chatting to you over some pineapple and cherries…

I’d like to just clear up that Ecuador is where the tropical fruits come from because bizarrely a lot of you ask me if they’re from the UK? I hope you’d been sampling the wine when you said that.
So we went to check out the farms, plan the ‘Ecuador (nursery) project’ as well some as take care of some other very important business, like investigate the rumours of an anaconda on the farm (confirmed true 5-7m eek), visit a chocolate factory (ok we repent), look for some whales (don’t ask!) and attend the fruit farmers wedding (an honour).

Here’s some pics to give you a flavour of our trip…
Say thanks to these trees for your tasty mango (good manners cost nothing):

And this year’s mango (don’t fret they’ve got months to grow..)

Talking to cocoa about fair play - which funnily enough grows on the same farm as our mangoes…

A pineapple making day…

You can see we use really really nice fruit….and absolutely nothing else!

Meet the chief (Paula) she makes sure we get it nice and juicy

Yes I am ashamed to admit it but I succumbed to this terrible breakfast at 5am after 3 flights and 20hrs of travelling on the way back (1 more flight, 4 hrs to go!) There was nothing healthy on offer so it’s about time we had a word…

Andrew calls an early airport conference…

See you soon!

You can have a look here at the official NHS classification of what counts here.

So all of this leads me to my point, we regularly are asked by our fine fruit eaters how much Urban Fresh Fruit it takes to be considered part of your 5-a-day fruit eating. So to answer this I decided to make a handy and rather grand sounding ”Urban Fresh Fruit 5-a-Day Chart”.

The chart shows how much of each fruit is required to be considered a portion. You’ll also notice that all of our little bags exceed that amount which means, that each of our bags can be considered as 1 of your 5-a-day fruit and veg count!
It is, of course, at this point I have to remind you that it is important to vary the fruit and veg you eat to maintain a balanced diet and so on, but the good news is that our dried fruit snacks can be integrated into your healthy life style.

Pretty good right?

More importantly you’ll be able to buy them too, and I’m sure at some there might be a few free tasters….you never know….

We will be at:

19th-22nd June: Channel 4 Taste Festival - Regent’s Park, London.

5th-6th July: Cornbury Music Festival
12th-13th July: Summer in the Park - Manchester
15th-17th August: Northamptonshire Balloon Festival
29th-31st August: Chatsworth Country Fair
26-27th September: Lunch! 2008

We will have our full range of products to show you and more importantly, it’ll be nice to meet you all. So if you are at any of these events be sure to come and say “Hello!” to us.

Enjoy the weather!

So if you’re a peanut fan like me - Trek peanut. It’s like a healthy, chewy, dive in a glorious bar of goodness that hits the same spot as peanut butter or snickers. If you’re a peanut allergy sufferer you’re not necessarily missing out entirely as they do do an incredibly nice brownie version too and a whole load of other magnificent Nak’d bars some of which don’t have nuts in the recipe. It’s another great young ethical company and we dig their vibe.

So you’ll be seeing more of us two friendly little companies out and about together, sampling our tasty treats and looking to meet more of you that feel the same way as we do about all-added nonsense and healthy eating boredom. Unlike big corporate suits we’re coming along in person to tell you why we’re passionate about what we do and why we started making our goodies. Let us know if you’re going to any cool summer events, festivals or parties and maybe we’ll join you for some fun and food!

Come back here soon to see our big summer list of events and festivals.