Inside Bulmers: how world-famous Hereford cider is made

BULMERS is a name synonymous with Herefordshire. Not only is it one of the world's best-known brands, but many of us in Herefordshire have a connection with the company in one way or another.

My connection was my grandfather Peter Prior, who joined the company as financial director in the mid-60s, quickly becoming managing director and then taking over as chairman when Bertram Bulmer retired in 1973, a position he held until the early 1980s. 

My grandparents, Prinia and Peter Prior, with sons Martin and Stephen (and Charlie the donkey) (Image: Hereford Times)

He was the first non-family member to run HP Bulmer Ltd, which was founded in Herefordshire in 1887 by Henry Percival Bulmer, better known as Percy.

The company now is, of course, a very different operation to the one my grandfather told me about. Bulmers was sold to Scottish and Newcastle for £278 million in 2003, and came under the ownership of drinks giant Heineken when it took on Scottish and Newcastle in 2008.

And it is not just the ownership that has changed, with the entire process, from tree to bottle, now streamlined and tweaked for maximum efficiency.

But what has not changed is the importance of the company to Herefordshire.

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For three manic months of the year, growers and hauliers across the county work non-stop to feed the company's Ledbury mill, which runs 24 hours a day.

The whole process is on a massive scale, but many of the stages are automated, requiring minimal staff to operate. Much is done from a Batcave-like control room, where screens show the apples at every stage of the process. Employees on the ground are sparser than you might expect for such a huge factory.

Annie Skittery operates machinery to shake the apples from the trees (Image: Hereford Times)

I visited Bulmers midweek in late September, when the apple harvest is in full swing.

Stopping first at the Skittery family's orchards in Aylton, I watched the apples being shaken from the trees by tractor, then hoovered up by more tractor-powered machinery.

Apples fly as they are shaken from the trees, ready to be gathered in (Image: Hereford Times)

Grower James Skittery explained that the process is very different to that for eating apples, which have to be handpicked to avoid bruising.

The family used to supply Safeway, he said, but the costs became too high, with supermarkets imposing stringent standards, such as the necessary size of the apples.

The apples are swept up into trailers after being shaken from the trees (Image: Hereford Times)

Like many other Herefordshire growers, Mr Skittery, who was joined on the day by daughter Annie, who also works on the farm, has been supplying Bulmers for many years, with the relationship dating back to 1975.

And there is no sign of that relationship coming to an end, with the family having just entered another 25-year contract with the firm, planting up an orchard of a new, sweeter variety of apples to meet the changing tastes of cider drinkers.

The Skittery family has entered into a new 25-year contract with Bulmers, with new variety, Scrumptious, planted to meet changing tastes (Image: Hereford Times)

A long-term project, the trees will not be mature enough to be profitable for up to seven years, making the long contracts a necessity.

Once gathered, the apples are sent to the mill the next day, with the farms having to predict when they will be ripe and pre-book their hauliers and slots at the mill.

The operating season of the mill is short, with the rest of the year devoted to maintaining, repairing, and rebuilding the equipment.

The waiting silos, where the apples will be dropped at the Ledbury mill (Image: Hereford Times)

It is vital that the mill is in top condition during milling season, shift manager Simon Stone told me, with any breakdown liable to cause big problems for the entire, carefully coordinated supply chain.

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The apples are hauled off in 30-tonne lorries, said supplier manager Gill Turner, a far cry from the days when every farm had its own orchard and would take sacks in.

The Skittery family's apples are deposited into a silo at the Bulmers mill in Ledbury (Image: Hereford Times)

A typical day can see around 65 lorries arrive at the site, depositing 1,800 tonnes of apples to process.

"We do occasionally still get a chap turn up in a Land Rover with 40 sacks of apples to add, though," Ms Turner said.

At the mill, we watched the lorries dump their cargo into vast silos.

The apples are washed into the mill from the silos, using recycled water (Image: Hereford Times)

The apples are then washed down channels into the mill where they are mashed and enzymes added to help break them down and prevent them from turning into jam. The mash is heated to help the enzymes do their work, and sent to the 11 pressers, which can process 100 tonnes an hour.

The apples are washed and moved in for mashing on conveyor belts (Image: Hereford Times)

Last week, Mr Stone said, the mill extracted 927 litres of juice per tonne of apples, an incredibly high percentage.

The remaining pomace, which the mill spits out into waiting lorries, is shipped off to Hampton Bishop, where it is put into a biodigester and turned into green energy.

Mill shift manager Simon Stone explains the process (Image: Hereford Times)

The juice is pumped into tanks for a two-stage evaporation process and then sent off for storage in the 'tank farm', where it waits until being loaded into lorries and taken to the firm's Plough Lane site in Hereford for fermentation.

The juice is pumped through a network of pipes and tanks and evaporated to create concentrate (Image: Hereford Times)

And it is not just the pomace which is recycled, with the water gathered in the evaporation process used to fulfill all of the plant's hefty water needs, while energy use is reduced by evaporating the juice by boiling it at 54 degrees celcius - a feat made possible by doing it in a vacuum.

The 'tank farm' at the mill, where the concentrate waits to be taken to Hereford for fermentation (Image: Hereford Times)

Bulmers now might be unrecognisable to the late Percy and his brother Fred, who joined his enterprise in 1899. But the industry is still rooted in Herefordshire, providing growers, millers, and more with a year-round livelihood, while stocking bars and supermarket shelves around the world.