Cider Orchard

The number of orchards in the UK has been declining for many years but recently there has been a resurgence in interest in planting them. The National Trust has indicated a desire to plant orchards at a number of their properties. Our main aim in creating the orchards is to provide a habitat for wildlife but we also wanted to create a niche product which we could market in order to support our rewilding efforts. We settled on a cider orchard for a variety of reasons. Firstly there has been an even bigger decline in traditional cider orchards than other orchards. Secondly they are easier to harvest than dessert apples and there seems to be an increasing market for artisan products like cider. We had our first harvest in 2022 and made 500 litres of sparkling cider using the “methode champenoise”. This was our proof of concept and following further investment this year we had our second harvest which saw us produce 1,000 litres.