Sustainability Spotlight | Sandford Orchards
Find out how Devon cider maker, Sandford Orchards, combines tradition and innovation to produce an award-winning range of core session, traditional, fine and fruit ciders in our latest Sustainability Spotlight.
Founded in 2002, independent, family-owned Sandford Orchards is based in Crediton, Mid Devon in the oldest working cider mill in the UK.
The area has long been known as one of the most fertile parishes in all of Britain, both for its grazing and ability to grow apples.
Sandford Orchards takes a fresh, natural and low impact approach to producing cider. Combining tradition and innovation, to produce an award-winning range of core session, traditional, fine and fruit ciders.
What have you done to make your business more sustainable?
Drinking authentically made cider is already a more sustainable choice than many other beverages on the market. This is because real cider like ours is made from real cider apples that grow on trees in local, sustainably managed orchards and those orchards are fantastic carbon sinks.
They are also thriving ecosystems acting as homes and larders for a huge range of creatures.
Additionally, we have put other things in place to reduce our impact on the environment including...
- We bio-convert our apple pulp waste into natural green gas and CO2, which is used to carbonate our cider.
- We use locally coppiced regenerating woodlands for fuel for heating water and have installed solar panels, which produce 25% of our required electricity.
- We are working towards having all our company vehicles charged by renewable power and are already using electrical forklifts and company cars.
- We use natural lighting, retro-fitted full insulation and rapid closing doors to reduce our energy requirements.
- We move the apples into the mill using rainwater harvested from their roofs.
- We are in the process of mapping our orchards using DNA technology, to identify and preserve ancient and climate-resistant apple trees.
What would you like to change in the future to improve your sustainability credentials further?
Despite biomass and solar, we still rely on oil in some parts of our process. We are actively working on big reductions here, with the aim to eradicate it entirely.
What are your tips for other businesses that want to become more sustainable?
Number one - you have to want to be. If we get it wrong we may pollute the natural world on which we rely to make our products.
Take the easy bite first, and put it into your personal and company KPIs. If you’re measuring sustainability as success, which it so clearly is, then you are much more likely to drive and champion it within your enterprise.
Find our more about Sandford Orchards on their website HERE.