Every year Sheffield produces an enormous amount of apples, in gardens, allotments and schools, but many of these apples end up wasted due to sheer amount of apples that a mature apple tree can produce and there only being so many apple crumbles one household can consume!
Community juicing is the solution. Regather takes your surplus apples, juices and pasteurises them and gives you some juice back in return.
A massive thank you to everyone that has donated already – in 6 days we received a massive 3,000 kilos of apples – already over our set maximum amount.
We have lots of pressing to do now to get all the apples processed and turned into juice.
We can only accept cooking or eating apples – no crab apples.
When you bring your apples to us we will weigh them, this is called the ‘Dry Weight’.
We estimate that we can extract 50% of the juice from your donation and this is called the ‘Wet Weight’.
When apples are donated to us we will give you 25% of the volume of juice produced back, pasteurised in glass bottles. We then sell the rest throughout the year to cover the costs of the project.
All apples must be in good condition, only minor bruising and not rotten.
Minimum donation = 6kg of apples
Maximum donation = 200kg of apples
Please remember we cannot process rotten or mouldy fruit. Freshly picked, ripe fruit is best.
If you pick and store your apples before we can use them then please check for any rotten or mouldy apples. Some light bruising, stalks and leaves are all fine.
We generally try to avoid windfall apples where possible, especially if there are pets roaming the garden. All types of apples are great, a good mix of varieties gives the best results. Cookers and eaters are all welcome as they help balance sweetness and acidity. Even apples you wouldn’t consider eating are good (as long as not rotten of course). We can’t take any pear or other fruit donations as we don’t have the right kit to process them.
Picking Apples Methods: (suggestions from The Orchard Project)
These methods are offered as suggestions only. The individuals picking the fruit need to make sure their activity is safe.
1. Use telescopic apple pickers to reach individual apples. This is pretty slow!
2. Shake apples into a tarpaulin or sheet – an experienced and competent person climbs the tree and shakes it, or grip the tree with a hook on a long pole and shake it from the ground.
Wear protective head gear! Gets lots of apples out of the tree quickly. You end up with twigs and leaves in with the apples which are a pain when washing the apples.
3. Shake the tree as above, but just let them hit the ground. This is pretty quick, but lots of bending over. You can get all the windfall at the same time, and sort apples you want from those you don’t.
4. Pick any you can reach off the branch. Easy.
