Local Food Heroes - Stephen Wheeler talks to Jeremy and Alexia Benson of Bensons Simply Pressed Fruit
The old adage starts with ‘an apple a day’. At Bensons Simply Pressed Fruit in Sherbourne, in the heart of the Cotswolds, they use around 1000 kilos a day of English apples to produce 300,000 bottles a year of deliciously natural fruit juices.
The Benson family has been farming for three generations, and it was on a visit to his father’s farm in Northumberland that Jeremy and Alexia Benson first tasted apple juice pressed from apples grown in the farm orchard. That was back in 2000, and from modest beginnings selling their juices at music festivals, they now market their products to the National Trust, pubs and restaurant chains, national wholesalers such as Creed Foodservice, delis and farmers markets all over the country.
They use a simple process that has been around for centuries; the apples are pulped and pressed, then pasteurized and bottled. There are no added sugars, water or preservatives, and that simplicity comes out in the flavour – pure, crisp English apples. It takes just 24 hours to turn fresh English apples into juice and 15 whole apples to fill a bottle. During the long hot summer of 2006 they started to freeze their juices, for healthy iced lollies for their four children. Commercial production of the ‘Chilly Billy’ lollies began in 2007, and they have seen a 300% increase in sales to the present day, so that they now sell more lollies than juices. I asked Alexia what had been their biggest challenge since launching the business? “Taking it from the farmer’s market to a brand that has now been accepted by national customers,” she replied. “We wrote a business strategic development plan with the help of Business Link in Cheltenham; it gave us a clear vision of our goal, and the path to take.” Bensons feel they can now take on the national manufacturers of juice and iced lollies with their recently re-designed packaging – but it’s the unadulterated, pure flavour that wins it for me, whether the apples are mixed with rhubarb, elderflowers or blackberries.
From the outside, the Bensons bottling plant is a traditional yard of Cotwolds stone barns on the Sherbourne National Trust estate. At the core is a thriving Gloucestershire business, committed to selling a high quality product whist supporting the rural community.
To see the actual article, click here
1st May 2010
Jeremy and Alexia Benson
Follow us