The owner of Fowey Valley Cider, in Lostwithiel, Cornwall, is celebrating what has turned out to be a bumper year for its orchards.
Barrie Gibson, sorting apples at Fowey Valley Cider
According to Barrie Gibson, the crop is both the largest for several years and of excellent quality, thanks to just the right amount of sun and rain, and the warm temperatures which extended throughout September.
However, in such high-yielding years, gardeners, smallholders, and community orchards are left with a surplus of apples. Many are forced to watch perfectly good fruit rot away because they simply have so much that they don’t know what to do with it.
Barrie’s award-winning cider business has several practical pieces of advice to reduce this waste of a great British crop, while saving money and increasing self-sufficiency.
He said: “Here at Fowey Valley, we’ve had lots of requests from people who are inundated with fruit and don’t want it to go to waste. In response, we are offering to swap bottles of cider for bags of apples. Every 15kg of apples can be swapped for a bottle of our Castledore cider.
“Obviously, this is great for us as, often, people have wonderful, traditional cider apple varieties growing in their back gardens. However, it also puts a glut of fruit to good use, reduces waste, and helps make a local business more sustainable. Not to mention the delicious cider you get in return!”
Barrie, who founded Fowey Valley Cidery in 2012, will only take apples from trees which haven’t been sprayed with chemical pest control agents. All apples are washed at the cidery twice before being pressed.
And he has some important advice when harvesting apples to make sure the fruit is undamaged. “Never pull apples off the tree or even twist them off the tree,” he said. “If the apples don’t fall off the tree after a gentle shake of the branch, they aren’t ripe. Unripe apples, which stay stubbornly on the tree, consist mainly of starch rather than the sugar that’s so important to a good-tasting apple.”
Barrie and his team are running courses for those who want to learn to make their own cider at home. Find out more on the Fowey Valley Cider website. Anyone with any questions about supplying apples can email Barrie.
