UK cider set to benefit from sweetest apple crop ‘in recent memory’
Multiple heatwaves in the UK have boosted expected yields from the UK’s orchards, with this year’s cider crop to be bigger and better than in recent years.
The UK’s driest and hottest spring for over a century has concentrated the sugar content of apples, making them smaller but sweeter.
“Last year was a perfect storm thanks to the wet, cool summer and our most challenging harvest as a brand, but this summer tells a very different story,” Nick Showerings, director of fine cider brand Showerings, said.
“We are looking at one of the sweetest and potentially most abundant crops in recent memory,” he added.
The harvest has come at a good time for UK cider, which has been struggling under a mountain of costs and flat demand.
“The last 12 months have been some of the most disruptive I can remember,” David Sheppy, chair of the National Association of Cider Makers, said at a recent event.
“Inheritance tax uncertainty, the abrupt closure of SFI options, cost burdens from Extended Producer Responsibility (pEPR), and changes to excise duty have all hit hard. Add to that wage and National Insurance increases, and our margins are under real strain.”
The industry is worth £3bn a year, with over 700m litres of cider produced annually.
But troubles have persisted for decades. Many apple orchards have been razed for development and converted to intensive bush orchards – since the second world war, 90 per cent of traditional orchards have disappeared.
Cider makers have previously called on the government to protect what they say is one of the country’s most environmentally friendly farming systems.
The continued rise of fine cider, which is usually made with 100 per cent apple, may be a boon to this campaign, with strong growth as British consumers are increasingly opt for premium alcohol products.
Felix Nash, founder of the Fine Cider Company, told The Observer that the rise in fine cider was more likely to encourage preservation of orchards than legislation.
“Government is rarely proactive, more reactionary… [there’s] nowhere near enough protective legislation,” he said.