commercial set up costs

[Brian Wild]

Does anyone know what budget I would need to set up a small commercial cider business? Its for 5 to 10 thousand litres worth. I am looking at investing in a small barn/workshop it has electricity and is ideal for a small scale business. This would be a dream come true. Please help if you can, currently researching profits and costs etc.

Thank you lovely people.

[benfezz]

It is as long as a piece of string.

Reckon if you had a barn and apple trees already best case would be £5,000. Just to cover equipment, some bottles for the first year, food hygiene adaptation of small barn.

If you need money to buy trees/cider house/land then will be much more. And if you invested in expensive equipment could be double the above easily.

Regards,

Ben

[Tim]

I started with £250, I did not have the luxury of money to burn.

 

Tim

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[Ray Blockley]

We started with less, working from home (as we still do), home-made press, scrounged equipment, old 6 gall wine fermenters... Less than £100 for us.

 

*BUT* rather than sound like the proverbial old Yorkshire men from the Monty Python sketch, I think Ben is spot on. Depends how deeply you want to throw yourself in and what capital you can happily chuck into your venture. I wouldn't start off the way we did again, but then ours is a "hobby business". 

 

As a general comment (not aimed at Brian):

 

What I think is more important for the health of good cider (which I hope we all aspire to?) is that anyone starting out learns their stuff first - and does some long deep thinking and researching.

 

Sadly from local & national experience there are a few too many folks who still think making cider is a licence to print money and any old apple will make "cider". The attitudes of: add more sweeteners to mask the taste / bung it an old oak cask and pour some cheap Aldi dark rum in too / if all else fails add Vimto or Ribena / etc. is being seen a little too often I fear. 

 

The old adage "learn to walk before you can run" is apt but the popularity of the drink we hold dear is leading to many leaping on the bandwagon... 

 

Sorry to sound cynical but I have drank some truly awful stuff recently purporting to be "real cider" and "made traditionally".      

 

Cheers, Ray

 

--------

Ray B

From: Tim <t...@marshwoodvalecider.com>
To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com
Sent: Saturday, 6 July 2013, 18:51
Subject: RE: [Cider Workshop] Re: commercial set up costs

I started with £250, I did not have the luxury of money to burn.

 

Tim

 

 

From: cider-w...@googlegroups.com [mailto:cider-w...@googlegroups.com] On Behalf Of benfezz
Sent: 06 July 2013 18:35
To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com
Subject: [Cider Workshop] Re: commercial set up costs

 

It is as long as a piece of string.

 

Reckon if you had a barn and apple trees already best case would be £5,000. Just to cover equipment, some bottles for the first year, food hygiene adaptation of small barn.

 

If you need money to buy trees/cider house/land then will be much more. And if you invested in expensive equipment could be double the above easily.

 

Regards,

Ben

On Saturday, July 6, 2013 6:01:59 PM UTC+1, Brian Wild wrote:

Does anyone know what budget I would need to set up a small commercial cider business? Its for 5 to 10 thousand litres worth. I am looking at investing in a small barn/workshop it has electricity and is ideal for a small scale business.  This would be a dream come true. Please help if you can, currently researching profits and costs etc.

Thank you lovely people.

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[james]

Depends on your location, for one can you source the varieties you wish to make your cider from and how many tons do you need to make the 5000 litres Kingston blacks give little juice compared to Morgan's which are a lot more generous most of my time is taken picking up he apples and I'm surrounded by cider apple orchards where where I live I only make roughly upto 100 galls a year. you could buy the apples bulk and contract out the pressing as the equipment can be expensive to make on a large scale be interesting to hear what kind of quantities some of the guys on the forum make a day on what kind of press they use to that would give you an idea

[Tim]

Amen to that Ray, there is some doing the  rounds at the moment that tastes quite awful, to get over the fact it now comes with various fruit juices added to mask the fact.

 

Keep it Real. J

[Alasdair Keddie]

We spent our first 2 years learning the ropes with various home made kit which we've gradually upgraded to a semi commercial level.

The first upgrade was our home made wooden scratter which we replaced with a fruit shark for around £500.  There really is no substitute for a decent scratter, although after feeding 10 tons of apples through it last season, we could well be looking at something a bit more robust if we scale up again.

After a lot of research we then decided to upgrade to a Voran P2 hydraulic press last year.  We had it imported from Austria and saved a good chunk on what it would have cost from Vigo (£4.5K including VAT which we could claim back so £3.6K actual).

By a small miracle we managed to get hold of 10 tons of good quality cider apples last season, in what was a very difficult year for UK orchards.  The net result was 6,000 litres of great cider :)  it would have been more but a severe flood at our barn carried off the last ton (we learned the hard way that good apples float, on the plus side there are several hundred cider tree saplings growing wild in the nearby countryside!)

Scaling up was a bit of a painful experience but we're set now and ready for this year's season.  Cider sales should just about cover our capital costs this year, next year we might even turn a profit :)

Anyway, good luck with your project, dreams come true when you put the time and effort in.  We couldn't have got as far as we have without the help of this community, feel free to get in touch if you have any specific questions or better still, ask them here so those following in your footsteps can reap the benefits :)

Alasdair

[skidbro...@tiscali.co.uk]

Hello Brian

If you are intending to make 5-10 thousand litres, I would stay under the farmhouse exemption at least until you know what you are doing. When you go over it you will probably have to double production just to stand still. I should try making 100 litres before going to 10,000 and try to do it without too much catital investment. You can always scale things up when you have a good product but it will be hard to sell alot of bad product.

I started in 2005 and made more than 40,000 litres last year with 1500 litres going mousy and will be fed to the cider vinegar. The rest has been great but it has improved every year as I have learned more.

My wife will tell anybody who will listen that we haven't covered the costs yet but it is not all about the money!

Having said that, as Tim has recently said: It is going to be increasingly difficult for people like me to compete with the huge number of new small scale excise exempt cider makers many of whom do not need to make a living from it. Unlike me

Cheers

Guy

----Original Message----
From: bri...@gmail.com
Date: 06/07/2013 18:03
To: <cider-w...@googlegroups.com>
Subj: [Cider Workshop] commercial set up costs

Does anyone know what budget I would need to set up a small commercial cider business? Its for 5 to 10 thousand litres worth. I am looking at investing in a small barn/workshop it has electricity and is ideal for a small scale business.  This would be a dream come true. Please help if you can, currently researching profits and costs etc.

Thank you lovely people.

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[barry field]

Hi Brian ,ive all the ingredients for your dream ,barn  and orchard and al lthe gear , where are you in uk
 

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Date: Mon, 8 Jul 2013 07:19:39 +0100
From: skidbro...@tiscali.co.uk
To: cider-w...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Re: [Cider Workshop] commercial set up costs

[Brian Wild]

Hi Folks.

Thanks for all your time and effort answering my question on this. Some really useful insight and so much detail that I totally agree with. This group is like a breathe of fresh air.

A bit of background. I have made approximately 1000 litres each year for the last five years, actually it should have been 6 years but my autumn wedding messed up the production (small print for my wife should she ever read this - "it was worth it"). However we did polish off the previous years batch at the reception so cider was involved. In fact I was probably a little too merry that night simply down to the fact that any bottle which wasn't fully finished made me feel compelled to finish it off (I knew just how much blood sweat and tears were involved).  

Anyway I love making it, love its story and it's importance, travelling the west country for it, oh and drinking it believe it or not.

I could honestly pick apples off the floor all day and night breaking my back, I'm in my absolute element. I made the decision to take the plunge to turn this here hobby into a hobby that can make a few quid (potentially). And say I make a loss? well in which case I have had a blast making it and drinking and talking about it non stop, because I love everything about it. 

I am no Richard Brandson, but I did meet the chap once and he told me this "Put your money in the things you enjoy". Alright for him to say when he has billions backing him up, but still his logic is admirable.

Not so long ago I was foraging through a farmers market, there was the usual, cheese, bread, olives, and then I came across some local cider, and without criticising the chap (because it is hard work to make average cider or bad by hand) I realised that my own cider was far, far better, even if I do say so myself. But that comes with time, experience, hard work and dedication to the art.

I should go as I am at work sitting behind a computer talking about my passion. Cant have that in the work place ;o).

Thanks again one and all.

Brian from Surrey.

[BriWild]

Hello Barry.

I'm guessing a long way from you if you have all the gear.
Down in Surrey my friend, or up in Surrey depending on you.

Brian

[james]

Briwild best of luck if you go for it I m in east somerset round the old showerings orchards the more decent cider made and the more people who are passionate about it the better as far as i m concerned i make about 100 galls a year myself and have made 70 different blends and single varities over the last 8 years its a rewarding time what i ve learn t its all about the apples

[Jez Howat]

James,

I read your email (nice part of the country, by the way) and as I got to the end where you wrote "it's all about the apples" I could almost hear a low, monotone, droll of 1000 Workshoppers repeating "it's all about the apples" in a kind of Wicker Man stylee.

Gonna have nightmares now:-)

All the best

Jez