Apple disaster became a success
Apple disaster became a success
ON June 7 last year, a five-minute freak hailstorm decimated the crops on Hayles Fruit Farm, Winchcombe, Glos.
The entire apple stock of every variety was ruined and the totally unexpected weather damaged 25% of other fruit such as pears and plums.
The Harrell family, who have run the 112ha (134 acre) farm for the past 40 years, were faced with a major disaster. The apple fruit, despite the storm damage, was perfect but the hailstone scars and blemishes meant the fruit would not sell through supermarkets or their farm shop with any success. With cider merchants offering £60/t, they were contemplating a huge loss on the seasons output. Martin Harrell, who manages the farm, said: "It was a terrible blow. In 40 years we had never experienced such a storm, we lost around £300,000 worth of crops in five minutes – thats how little time it took to ruin a years growth.
Upset but undaunted, they worked to turn the disaster around. Saving the best of the crop for the farm shop, they sold a large percentage as cider fruit and put the remainder in cold storage.
For the previous two years they had used the services of the Pershore Horticultural College in Worcs, to produce a small amount of apple juice under the Hayles Fruit Farm label and sell them through the farm shop.
The bottles of single variety juice were so popular with the customers and in ever constant demand that the Harrells decided on a brave move to make the crop failure a commercial success by investing £10,000 to create their own in-house production plant.
They made the first batch in October 1999 and to date have produced 11,000 75cl bottles for farmers markets as well as the farm shop and 14,000 33cl bottles for the restaurant and hotel trade. Now the product sells at outlets throughout the Cotswolds, Worcs and as far afield as London. The Hayle Fruit Farm venture can without doubt now be hailed a great success!
Michael Charity
A storming success… Martin Harrell with the results of the farms £10,000 investment.