A NEW Manx company is bringing a brand new idea to the Island - making cider and apple juice from “orphaned” apples from your back garden.
The Apple Orphanage Co Ltd has issued an appeal to anyone on the Isle of Man with apples - even if it’s only one tree - to get in touch and they will transform your apples into delicious apple juice and cider.
The company will soon be suppling apple sacks - or you can simply take the apples along in your own container - and the Apple Orphanage Co Ltd does the rest, using the very latest state-of-the-art equipment newly installed at their base at Lynague on the west coast.
They will give you bottles of juice based on the weight of apples supplied. The basic calculation is that every 3kgs of apples gives you one bottle of juice in return.
The 2010 apple season is happening right now and tens of thousands of apples are waiting on our trees - but it seems that most people just collect a handful and the vast majority just fall off and rot in the ground.
Now this enterprising young company is sending out a message to the Manx public - “we will take your unwanted apples and in return we’ll give you apple juice”.
Will Faulds and Charlotte Traynor started making their own apple juice and cider some time ago as a solution to utilising the otherwise wasted apples from their relatively small orchard at Lynague on the Peel to Kirk Michael coast road. This soon grew as friends and family started to donate more unused fruit.
The pair started to look for a plausible way to go commercial; however, it was obvious that their own orchard was nowhere near big enough to go into the commercial market and, still driven by the initial concept to make use of an abundant, untapped Manx resource, they decided upon the Co-operative Harvest scheme.
The result was the creation of the Apple Orphanage Co Ltd - inviting the public to supply their own “orphaned” apples and partake in the Co-operative Harvest; sharing apple juice with those who helped make it.
As they researched the Island's apple resources a number of really interesting statistics were uncovered - the first being that the Isle of Man is home to at least 200 different varieties of apples, two of which were cultivated on the Island.
One, the Andrew Johnson, is a cooker but makes an excellent dessert apple if picked late, and is named after a previous Manx head forester. The other, more well known and recognised by the National Fruit Collection, is a dessert apple called the ‘Manx Codlin', raised by Mr Kewley at Ballanard in the 1800's. Both varieties are fairly widespread on the Island, though not easy to obtain. Apple Orphanage hopes to take cuttings and graft their own to ensure the continued survival of these truly Manx varieties.
They also found that some people have really large apple orchards - with as many as 100 trees - which is something Will Faulds did not expect. “It has been an eye-opener,” he said, “and we still don’t feel that we’re anywhere near finding all the orchards in the Isle of Man. We’re sure there will be some more big surprises around the corner.”
One of those surprises has already happened because they found one tree at a house in Andreas which they will never forget because it has cube-shaped fruit! Will and Charlotte are still trying to identify this really unusual apple.
But the apples don’t have to be special to be made into delicious apple juice or cider. “There are around 7,000 known varieties in the world, but it doesn’t matter which variety - they all help to balance the flavour of apple juice and cider with their unique characteristics, even crab apples!” said Charlotte.
“There is much more diversity than we expected around the Island, but it became very obvious from the beginning that virtually all our apples are going to waste and simply dropping off the trees and rotting on the ground every year.”
Will added, “They're a wonderful untapped natural resource and we thought it was worth investing in the equipment to make good use of perfectly good apples which would otherwise go to waste; it's fantastic to offer people a way to process their fruit which is usually beyond their means,”
There are one or two simple rules - the Apple Orphanage Co Ltd doesn’t want apples with rot, dirt or broken skin and they'd like to have each tree's fruit kept separate - even if you're not sure what variety it is. Otherwise, it’s very simple - collect the apples, take them to the Apple Orphanage Co Ltd and you get bottles of apple juice in return, free of charge.
And they are also making their own delicious sparkling 3.5% "Elderflower Keshal” (you’re not allowed to call it “champagne”) and soon a nettle beer, again from under-used Manx, home-grown, natural ingredients - with more ideas in the pipeline. Products can be ordered online.
The Apple Orphanage Co Ltd will take apples from now until the end of November from Wednesday to Saturday from 1pm to 7pm. Telephone Will on 439445 or Charlotte on 315679.
www.appleorphanage.com
