19th century Herefordshire cider-making business 'cautiously optimistic' for bumper crop
Westons Cider's head of business development Darryl Hinksman says it is 'too soon to say yet' but it will know in coming weeks how this year's apples have done
Last updated 20th Oct 2025
The warm summer mixed with recent rain could be 'almost perfect' for this year's apple crop says a 145-year-old Herefordshire cider-making company.
It's after the National Trust has reported bumper crops of orchard fruit as well as pumpkins in its gardens.
The trust has said it's a 'real contrast' to this time last year when wet weather reduced fruit harvests.
'Interesting period' of weather since spring
Westons Cider was set-up in the Herefordshire village of Much Marcle in 1880 by its founder Henry Weston and sources all apples from a 50-mile radius around its mill.
Head of business development Darryl Hinksman says it's been an 'interesting period' from the end of spring up until now and they'll soon see just how well their crop has done this year.
"At the moment it's too soon to say whether it's going to be a bumper crop, but I think we're cautiously optimistic that it's going to be a pretty good crop of apples," he said.
"The early fruit that we've had in is very high in sugar, that's good news, but they're not bulking up yet in terms of what we would expect to see but it's early days with the peak not for a couple of weeks.
"We've had quite a bit of rain over the last few weeks that could have quite a positive impact, ideally if it had started two weeks earlier that would have been better, but fingers crossed and we'll know for sure (how we've done) in about a fortnight once we start to get the bulk of the fruit coming in."
July record sales down to 'warm weather'
In total Mr Hinksman says they expect to process anything from '33-40,000 tonnes of fruit' depending on the size of the fruit that comes in.
He also confirmed July sales were really good as a result of the warm weather.
Hinksman said: "This year we were about 5% up on the same month last year which also was a record month, so what it means is as we go into the harvest we will need all the fruit we can get because we only make our ciders from locally grown fresh fruit that we press at the mill.
"That part of keeping it local is absolutely key to us and although clearly we've modernised and grown significantly, we still make cider in exactly the same way, just in a more modern version.
"So we'll need to have sufficient apples coming in over the next few weeks to ensure that we keep enough cider to last us to the next 15-16 months when we go through the whole cycle again."
The National Trust have also said despite crops ripening weeks earlier than normal due to the summer weather, pumpkins will still be good for Halloween with 'careful storage'.
It's put the 'bumper' harvest down to a combination of weather factors including last year's wet conditions alongside the warm and dry spring which was followed by plenty of sun this summer.