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The Barn, Tumblers Green
The Barn
Braintree
Essex
CM77 8AZ
The Big Bear Cider Mill is a sustainable apple-to-can cider production facility based in Essex, run by a team motivated by their passion for cider.
Our ciders are 100% apple juice, vegan, free from any artificial colours. Our ciders are a world away from mouth drying scrumpy or sickly mass-produced cider. Great cider with a provenance: we know who grafted the tree root stock, planted our trees, picked and pressed our apples, canned our cider.
The Big Bear Cider - Essex & Proud
Essex orchards were ripped up in the 60s and 70s to make way for gravel pits. We bought disused gravel pits and have turned them into flourishing orchards actively regenerating the land; making great cider and having a positive environmental impact.
The Big Bear has a strong environmental focus: we make quality craft cider from pesticide free, traditional cider apple varieties, grown in thriving orchards created from regenerated gravel pits. We have planted over 3,000 apple trees and improved our soil year on year to ensure our apples have the nutrients they need.
Our staff are incredibly important to us; we wouldn't have a business without them! Our focus is to offer our staff a chance to grow and develop and take on as much responsibility as they are happy with.
The environment is at the heart of everything we do and we are hearing more and more that customers are now demanding this commitment from producers.
The environment is one of the biggest issues we all face today. Customers are extremely keen to buy sustainably and ensure that they know where their products are made and how they are made. We can fully demonstrate our environmental provenance, which gives us an advantage over larger manufacturers.
The Big Bear is working with Essex Wildlife Trust to ensure our orchards can be a safe and welcoming habitat for wildlife. We have bat boxes, owl boxes, hedgehog houses, bird houses, bees hives, habitat for newts and insects, and a wildlife pond. We will continue to collaborate with Essex Wildlife Trust and work with them to promote biodiversity and sustainability throughout the county.
We have planted over 1,500 native hedging plants to surround the orchard and also have a disease-resistant Elm tree flourishing. All our achievements are communicated via our social media channels and are available via QR codes on our packaging and products.
It has been proven that biodiversity is beneficial to both the environment and crop yields. This means that by acting responsibly, we can increase our production and grow our business sustainably.
Our staff are incredibly important to us; we wouldn't have a business without them! We are working with the Kickstart scheme and have Ashlee working with us. We bought Ashlee a bicycle so he can cycle to the orchard. He has nearly completed his six month placement and we have lined up a full time job for him with a small local construction company. We're all delighted with the positive outcome and wish Ashlee good luck with his future employment.
