At Napton Cidery, our whole business relies on the incredible work of nature.

This week we’ve been talking to Colin, who owns one of the orchards that supplies our delicious apples. Colin grew up on his family’s farm and has worked there all his life tending to sheep, cattle and crops. He also looks after a 9 acre orchard growing traditional cider apple varieties such as Michelin, Dabinett and Yarlington Mill, which are then harvested for us at Napton Cidery. Colin’s father planted the orchard in 1976 as a long term investment… they weren’t able to pick any apples until 15 years later! It was worth it though, as Colin and now his son enjoy farming work very much.

Colin especially loves working with nature; watching things grow, bringing the products of his labour to fruition and then winter creeps up, everything dies away and with the spring the cycle begins again. As we enter summer, the orchards are currently in full bloom, the grass is growing and the sheep are grazing. The wind is beginning to knock the trees about, but the apples are still very small at the moment. In October it will be time to start harvesting and the apples can begin a whole new journey of becoming a heavenly pint of Napton Cider!

*Head cider maker Jolyon about to begin the harvest.*

Nature is so important to our business and we feel a great responsibility to be as environmentally friendly as possible. The current steps that we have taken as part of this commitment are:

All of our apples come from traditional unsprayed orchards and biodiverse growers, limiting the introduction of chemicals into the ecosystem and making our cider much more natural too.
All of our ingredients are British and are sourced as near to the cidery as possible.
We’ve just had our distillery license approved, so we can now distil all of our products on site, rather than shipping them around the country.
We make sure that our cleaning products are natural: we even use our apple cider vinegar! Our bin bags are also 100% compostable.
We’ve now phased out our 3L pouches, replacing them with glass flagons that can be refilled at the cidery with any of our still ciders and our new Lost Apple Draught Cider.
Our carrier bags are 100% compostable and our takeaway cups are recyclable too. We’re looking at moving away from plastic completely, replacing our carrier bags with tote bags in the future.
We’ve recently changed our packaging: we now use cardboard and paper tape to ensure that all of our deliveries are 100% recyclable and plastic-free.

Environmental sustainability is one of our top priorities and we’re always looking into how we can improve. We have a lot more ideas and we’re working on our next steps: we would like to be 100% plastic-free in the very near future. If you have any suggestions, please let us know, we’re happy to listen.

We wouldn’t be able to make our delicious cider without the beautiful harmony of our environment, so we’re committed to protecting it however we can. The next time you enjoy our cider, raise your glass to the amazing work of nature that created your pint for you!

Our commitment to sustainability