Cornish Orchards is all about respect and balance. They create award winning, premium ciders and juices, using traditional craft practices, produced to modern, exacting standards.
Each autumn, the apples arrive, full of flavours, sweetness and juice. All this goodness is captured, fermented and blended into a delicious range of ciders and juices.
Master blenders demonstrate their skills by creating products that are not only refreshing, but bursting with outstanding flavours and fruity aromas.
Company history:
Andy Atkinson arrived at Westnorth Manor Farm with his herd of dairy cattle in the spring of 1992. The farm is part of the Duchy of Cornwall Estate.
Drawing motivation from Cornwall Council’s project to save, rejuvenate and replant traditional apple orchards, and wanting to encourage birds and wildlife, Andy planted three orchards on the farm. Soon, he had one of the largest collections of Cornish apple varieties in the county, creating the perfect wildlife habitat.
Enthused by his new crop full of exciting, intriguing flavours, Andy juiced and blended, then hand labelled his first Cornish apple juices. With this success and the introduction of his first Cornish Orchards cider, Andy took the leap to diversify from dairy farming to juice and cider making and threw his wellies away!
Today we are a passionate team of over 35 local staff, working hard to create full-of-flavour, whole fruit drinks and award-winning ciders, to serve both locally, nationally and even internationally.
We also continue to be relentless innovators. Our goal is to produce premium ciders and fruit juices using the best methods and ingredients possible. We constantly strive to bring products to our consumers that can be appreciated for their outstanding flavour and quality.
Why Cornish Orchards?
Cornish Orchards uses freshly pressed apples that have been grown around the South West (Somerset, Devon and Cornwall) that are hand-graded and pressed on site.
Another big factor that sets Cornish Orchards aside from bigger players in the cider industry is that it does not force the fermentation period using temperature-control technology. Instead, opting to harness the cool, ambient temperatures of Cornwall’s winter months for maximum fermentation time yielding high-quality flavour. The cider is then matured in tank where, over time flavour and aroma develops and the youthful, austerity of cider softens providing vintage style qualities as the base of our range of ciders.
The cider makers never cut corners when it comes to the cider-making process. After a fine filtration, they then hand-blend each batch, making sure it’s consistent in flavour and quality.
Basically, we take our time and let nature do what she does best, which locks in the flavour and avoids us having to add in nasties to make our products taste good.