An appeal for apples!

Friday, 2 October 2026 09:00

By Harry Booth

The annual Jersey Cider Festival is in need of help to ensure it goes ahead as planned... because of a shortage of fruit!

The wet start to 2026, and the multiple heatwaves during late spring and into the summer, have led to a poor crop of fruit.

Thousands of apples are needed to carry out the traditional cider-making at the festival, using a horse-powered stone crusher and wooden press filled by volunteers.

Nicola Lucas, who has organised the Jersey Heritage 'La Faîs’sie d’Cidre' for 12 years, said:

"We usually collect about 80 large sacks of fruit from the main orchard that supplies us with cider apples for ‘La Faîs’sie d’Cidre’.

"We’ll be lucky to fill two sacks this year and are also hearing that any apples that have been harvested are not offering much juice.

"Although we often do a public appeal for Islanders with apples trees and orchards to help us to top up supplies, this year is different – we need their help to ensure the event can go ahead as planned."

"There is no question that the festival will take place, but we will have to adapt the format if we are unable to significantly increase the number of apples currently available.

"We will still share the traditional cider-making methods of crushing and pressing, but there will be fewer demonstrations and it is unlikely we will have freshly pressed apple juice available for people to sample.

"Adult festival-goers will, of course, be able to try last year’s cider vintage!"

On average, 160 sacks of cider-making apples are used at the festival to celebrate the island's cider-making traditions at Hamptonne.

It takes place on Saturday 17 and Sunday 18 October.

Anyone with spare apples of any variety – cider or otherwise – is asked to drop them off at Hamptonne from Monday 12 October onwards.

They need to have intact skin (bruised is acceptable) and be bagged.