Every fall, Calgary’s backyard fruit trees produce more apples, pears and cherries than homeowners know what to do with, but a Calgary business is turning that excess fruit into cider instead of letting it go to waste.
SunnyCider’s annual fruit donor program began Tuesday, inviting Calgarians to bring them their excess backyard fruit, where it will be sorted, pressed and fermented into cider.
Last year, the program diverted about 16,000 kilograms of fruit and produced roughly 10,000 litres of cider, according to founder Dennis Scanland.
This year, Scanland expects Calgarians could donate close to 20,000 kilograms of fruit.
The program has its roots in Calgary’s Sunnyside neighbourhood, where Scanland and his business partners began collecting apples from neighbourhood trees in 2013.
“We saw all the fruit trees in the neighbourhood and all the apples were falling to the ground and we thought there’s got to be something we can do,” Scanland said. “We were making applesauce, apple pies, and then making apple juice, and then the next thing that came was, ‘let’s try fermenting this.’ It took us a few years to make good cider, but once we did, it was really good.”
The social project eventually grew into SunnyCider, which opened seven years ago.
Scanland said his business partner estimates Calgary’s backyard trees could produce as much as 200,000 kilograms of fruit each year, although he said the figure is difficult to quantify.
“People inherit these yards with these beautiful apple trees and they produce these amazing apples and they take maybe a bucket or two and make an apple pie, and that’s about all they do with it, and then the rest goes in the green or it lands on the ground and just composts on the ground,” Scanland said. “It’s astronomical how much actual fruit could be rescued and brought to us.”
The fruit donor program typically collects crab apples, regular apples, pears, cherries, berries and currants, with donations ranging from 10 kilograms up to an entire truckload.
Donations are accepted Tuesday to Saturday from Aug. 25 to Oct. 3 from 10 to 3 p.m. at their cidery located at 3300 14th Avenue N.E.
Once the fruit arrives at SunnyCider, it is transferred into larger bins, washed and sorted, then ground into a pulp and pressed to extract the juice.
The juice is collected in 1,000-litre totes, where commercial yeast is added before it is left to ferment for about three to four weeks, but the process doesn’t end with the cider.
SunnyCider works with local urban farms to divert the leftover fruit pulp to composting programs, where it eventually returns to the soil.
Scanland said the environmental impact of the program is part of what keeps him interested in it.
“I’ve always been a little bit of an environmentalist and I love to make a difference. This is a lot more difference than I can make just on my own,” Scanland said. “It just means a lot, everything that we do at SunnyCider, we try to have the least environmental impact possible.”
This week, SunnyCider is releasing three ciders made entirely from Calgary fruit.
The first, in its fourth year of production, is made from 100 per cent Calgary crab apples and is oak-aged for about nine months.
Another is made from Calgary apples, while the third is an apple cider aged in two barrels previously used by Confluence Distilling.
The Fruit Donor Program runs until Oct. 3, with fruit accepted Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the back doors of SunnyCider Cider House.