Oh dear, I think I’m a bit in love with Innocent. A crush, I suppose you’d have to call it. It all started at their Village Fete last month in Regent’s Park. There was welly-wanging, rat-bashing, ferret-racing, story-telling, a dog show, helter-skelters – nothing too commercialised and just like a proper village fete in the country ought to be, albeit a very large one with a five-mile parking exclusion zone and the sort of crowds the local church would kill for.

I really can’t think of a better way to spend a tenner. It will be on again next year, so hopefully see you there. Innocent is an easy company to like. It’s not just the clever informality of the banter on the packaging (much imitated but never matched), the fact they give 10 per cent of profits to charity (last year’s fete alone raised £150,000), it’s not even that their smoothies taste really jolly nice. It’s that they manage to make us feel good about giving them our money. When Richard Reed, one of three co-founders, says that they are interested only in making things that are good for us, both nutritionally and environmentally, and to put as small a mark-up on it as possible, it comes across not as PR talk but genuine belief. They have the nation’s health at heart.

Let’s face it, why else would they come up with something as unglamorous and unpromising sounding as the Veg Pot? This being Innocent, though, they have managed to turn the simple into something rather splendid, and create the sort of product that will have others kicking themselves. In short, they have made vegetables not only easy and tasty, but sexy even.

“Smoothies came from the idea of making it easy for people to get fruit into themselves, and we wanted to do the same for veg,” says Reed (left). “But most people don’t like drinking vegetable juice, so we had to go down another route.”

The result is a tub stuffed full of raw broccoli, kale, spinach, pulses and other dull but worthy foodstuffs. Pop them in the microwave for a couple of minutes, give them a stir, and the transformation is complete: you’ve got three of your five a day sorted. I really think it is going to revolutionise the office lunch and give us a much-needed alternative to the sandwich.

The four launch flavours, which go into Waitrose today, were developed by a chef at the Fat Duck, who wisely eschewed snail porridge for Moroccan squash tagine with giant couscous and fresh coriander; Thai coconut curry with soya beans, pak choi and wild rice; Tuscan bean stew with tomatoes, kale and fresh parsley; and pea and broccoli rice with spinach, crème fraiche and mint.

“There’s nothing around like it,” says Reed. “Soup’s main ingredient is water, and counts as just one portion of veg, and most vegetarian meals are carbohydrate based to get the weight up. With ours, yes, there is a bit of wild rice or couscous, but it is absolutely packed with vegetables.”

For those interested in the science bit, the pots are also low-fat, low-salt, full of protein, provide between 58 and 100 per cent of the recommended daily fibre intake, and weigh in at less than 300 calories. According to Dr Shilpee Mehrotra, Innocent’s “smooth scientist”, they are “a nutritionist’s dream”.

They are also extremely tasty, and one of those at lunchtime, plus a smoothie, and you hit your magic five portions of fruit and veg, presumably making it OK to live off beer and crisps for the rest of the day.

“No, no, no. I’m a nutritionist, I couldn’t possibly say that,” says Mehrotra. “It’s all about balance, but it would certainly take the pressure off the other meals.”

Innocent Veg Pots, £3.49, are available from Waitrose