The island’s only cider farm launched its annual apple swap last Saturday, inviting gardeners with excess apples to swap them for cider or apple juice. It was inundated with fruit.
‘Everyone’s harvest is huge – there are apples everywhere,’ said managing director James Meller.
‘Last year was really poor, but we knew with the amount of blossom this spring we could expect a big harvest.’
‘We got ten tonnes on our first swap weekend, with 120 drop-offs. Apologies to anyone who had to wait last weekend, I know some people were in the queue for an hour and a half. We are opening the farm gates an hour early this weekend at 9am to help cope with the expected demand.’
The farm has been making cider for 25 years, and Mr Meller said this year could be a record-breaking crop.
‘There are certainly lots of apples but the question now, with the dry summer, is how juicy are they?’ he said.
The farm was desperate for apples last year after a poor harvest, but even after a great crop of its own, it was still keen to take more apples from islanders.
‘We still want people to come – it’s a tradition that has helped us during the lean times and it’s part of who we are,’ he said.
‘It's actually very exciting, you have to make the most of a harvest like this when you can.’
The apple swap takes place over eight Saturday mornings during Autumn, ending on 18 October.
Apples can be swapped for any Rocquette products, including ciders, apple juice and chutneys, at 19p per kilo for regular apples and 22p per kilo for cider apples.
To help with the expected windfall, the company is in the process of adding a new 40,000 litre tank for storing juice.
‘That will take us up to 240,000 litres and with that extra space we should be able to cope,’ said Mr Meller.
Rocquette sells most of its cider and other products within the Bailiwick, with only a small amount exported. However it is looking to grow the business in Jersey
‘We already sell in Jersey and we see ourselves as a Channel Islands company,’ said Mr Meller. ‘There are lots of great cider apples not being used over there and we have gone into partnership with a farm there and invested in a press.’
Last year the company made 1,000 litres of juice in Jersey and expects that to increase to 20,000 this year. The juice is brought back to Guernsey to ferment before being sent away to be bottled.
‘We do bottle our own apple juice here and have just invested in a canning machine which will be using in a pilot project this autumn,’ Mr Meller said. ‘It’s a busy time and there is a lot going on.’
You need to be logged in to comment. If you had an account on our previous site, you can migrate your old account and comment profile to this site by visiting this page and entering the email address for your old account. We'll then send you an email with a link to follow to complete the process.