English craft cider producers demand greater protection

English craft cider producers have demanded that the government up the percentage of apple juice in cider to 50% as part of the review of alcohol duty, saying that mass market competitors that contain sugar and extra water cheapen “true cider”.

Currently, cider only needs to be contain around 35% juice content, but The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra), which also represents cider and perry producers wants the government to raise to 50% when it  review the alcohol duty in the autumn. It launched its #NotFromConcentrate campaign back in May.

Gillian Hough, Camra’s real ale, cider and perry campaigns director, told The Guardian that consumers needed confidence that “when they are buying cider or perry it is a quality product that contains more juice than water.”

John Lawrence, of Lawrence’s Cider in Somerset also told the newspaper that “true cider” should be made from 100% apple juice, but that many large scale producers use apple concentrate and water with quite a high alcohol content. “It gives cider a bad name,” he said.

They also want more British-grown fruit used to make mass-produced cider, rather than importing concentrate from Poland or China, saying that this was undermining demand for British apples.

Jim Callender, founder of the Real Cider website called cider “part of the national identity”.

“It’s like England in a glass. It should be protected in the same way as Champagne,” he said, reportedly describing mass producer cider that sometimes contained sugary syrup and flavourings as “commercial cider syrup”.

However a spokesman for Heineken UK  said that it used “hundreds of millions of British apples” every year from more than 8,000 acres of orchards in and around Herefordshire to make its ciders. Aston Manor, the Birmingham-based cider producer and owner of Frosty Jack’s, pointed to its planting of 1,000 acres of new orchards in Herefordshire between 2014 and 2019.

‘The most important in a generation for cider policy’

Fenella Tyler, chief executive of the National Association of Cider Makers previously called this year “the most important in a generation for cider policy”.

Writing in the 2022 annual cider report compiled by Hereford-based 4th generation cider producer Westons (which produces its cider from 100% apple juice), she said the Alcohol Structures Review could be a great opportunity to support the cider industry and encourage innovation, “but to do this requires recognition from the government and a structure that supports cider making”.

The report noted that premium and craft ciders had outperformed mainstream cider in the off-trade, with the trade down from pubs and bars into off-trade premium outweighing any trade down from premium into mainstream or value cider, however  senior insight Manager IRI Alex Heffernan argued that the challenge was “that we do not see enough brands on shelf or enough space allocated to these ciders.”

“The focus in 2022 needs to be quality, reliability and taste. As promotions de-escalate and prices increase, shoppers will be looking for the biggest return on the pound they can get,” Heffernan concluded.

The cider market is currently worth £1.2bn, the Weston report said, but had fallen -11.9% year-on-year. However, the ‘crafted cider’ segment bucked the trend, by being the only segment in growth over the last year. Its share of the cider category  by value rose was 16.4%, up from 14.2% a year ago.