Announcement: The last day for apple donations for 2022 will be Thursday 6th October and we will cap donations at 50 kg per person so we can offer a fair service to all donors. All donors will receive an email before Christmas regarding juice collection.
2022 has been an absolute bumper year for apples! We have received already over 4,000kg of apples which has completely smashed any previous record in the last 4 years. If you are looking for places to donate apples after Thursday 6th Oct, have you considered these local organisations:
Food Works, Sheffield City of Sanctuary or OK Kitchen Social
(Do ring ahead to ask first – smaller organisations may struggle to accept large quantities)
Plans for 2022
This year we have been awarded a grant from the Cooperative Foundation to support our work in the community to produce apple juice, enabling us to upgrade our kit and become more efficient, but also enabling us to work more with the local community. Over 2022 and 2023 we will be working with schools across Sheffield to support them to engage in our apple juicing with any current trees they have and also to plant more trees on their grounds. The other exciting part of the funding is that it will enable us to plant avenues of fruit trees on our farm to realise our agroforestry dreams. Planting will be starting this Winter.
If you know any community group or school that would keen to engage in apple juicing please get in touch via [email protected]
All about the Juice
We have relocated our pressing facilities to Regather (57-59 Club Garden Road, S11 8BU) and we are now open for apple donations!
We will be open for drop off on Tuesdays and Thursday 3pm – 7pm. The last day for apple drop off for 2022 is Thursday 6th October.
PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ARE NOT ABLE TO PICK THE APPLES OURSELVES AS WE DON’T HAVE THE STAFF CAPACITY.
If you can’t make it on either day please contact us ([email protected]) and we will arrange a time that suits you. Any other questions, just get in touch!
HOW IT WORKS:
Bring your apples and we will give you 25% of the volume of juice produced back, pasteurised in glass bottles. We will let you know when your juice is ready.
Bring them to: Regather, 57-59 Club Garden Rd, Sheffield, S11 8BU on Tuesdays or Thursdays 3-7pm from the 30th August 2022.
Weighing Your Fruit
When you bring your apples to us we will weigh them, this is called the ‘Dry Weight’.
We estimate that we can extract 50% of the juice from your donation and this is called the ‘Wet Weight’.
As an example
You bring us 50kg of fruit…
We guarantee that we can extract 25 litres of the juice from these apples.
You get back 25% of that 25 litres in bottled juice = 6.25 litres. Our bottles are 750ml so that would equate to 8.3 bottles (or 8 full bottles) for you to take home.
You bring us 10kg of fruit… We can extract 5 litres of juice from this, and you can keep 25% of that juice. Or 1.6 bottles (or 2 full bottles).
Regather then sells the remaining juice to cover the costs of the project and invest the money made. You can buy our juice here.
COMMUNITY APPLE HARVESTING: GOLDEN RULES
Please remember we cannot process rotten or mouldy fruit. Freshly picked, ripe fruit is best.
If you pick and store your apples before we can use them then please check for any rotten or mouldy apples. Some light bruising, stalks and leaves are all fine.
We generally try to avoid windfall apples where possible, especially if there are pets roaming the garden. All types of apples are great, a good mix of varieties gives the best results. Cookers and eaters are all welcome as they help balance sweetness and acidity. Even apples you wouldn’t consider eating are good (as long as not rotten of course). We can’t take any pear or other fruit donations as we don’t have the right kit to process them.
Picking Apples Methods: (suggestions from The Orchard Project)
These methods are offered as suggestions only. The individuals picking the fruit need to make sure their activity is safe.
1. Use telescopic apple pickers to reach individual apples. This is pretty slow!
2. Shake apples into a tarpaulin or sheet – an experienced and competent person climbs the tree and shakes it, or grip the tree with a hook on a long pole and shake it from the ground.
Wear protective head gear! Gets lots of apples out of the tree quickly. You end up with twigs and leaves in with the apples which are a pain when washing the apples.
3. Shake the tree as above, but just let them hit the ground. This is pretty quick, but lots of bending over. You can get all the windfall at the same time, and sort apples you want from those you don’t.
4. Pick any you can reach off the branch. Easy.