About usWE WANT YOUR FRUIT
Are you tired of picking up fruit in the fall? All those apples or pears ending up in your green bin? We can help. We have a #fruitdonor program where we pay you in cider credits for all of your fruit!
We want your fruit and we are willing to pay you in cider! If you live in or around Calgary we are looking for apples, pears, berries, cherries, crabs or anything other fruit you may have. Do you have plums, grapes, or apricots? We will turn these into one of our small batch, cider club selections. SunnyCider’s goal is to let no piece of Calgary fruit go unused. Get your tree on our registry right away and we can make sure that we can use all this fruit is used in a timely manner, creating delicious, small batch cider.
We have two programs available for fruit donation:
- Dropping fruit off at our Cider house for cider credits. For every pound of apples and pears that you drop off we give you $.35 towards cider. For cherries we will give you $2/lb and berries, $3 a pound. There is no maximum. We will accept fruit Wednesday from 12-7PM and Saturday from 10AM-12PM and Sunday from 10-6PM in the fall from August 15-Oct 30. Again, 1 pound of apples/pears = $.35 credit, 1 pound of cherries=$2 and berries = $3. Location is here.
- Register your tree with Calgary Harvest.
Any posts online, please use the hashtag #fruitdonor so we can see what’s happening in the world of our fruit. Join our #fruitdonor community today! Take pictures of your picking party.
Fruit Donor FAQs
Where do we drop off fruit?
1-3300 14th Avenue NE
Location
When can we drop off fruit?
Wednesday during business hours – 12-7PM
Saturday from 10AM-12PM
Sunday during business hours – 10AM-6PM
What fruit is acceptable?
Apples, Crab Apples, Pears, Berries, Choke Cherries, Cherries, Currants, no rhubarb at the moment. Fruit must be relatively clean, very little leaves and debris in with them. We will refuse deliveries with any sign of rotten fruit. We reserve the right to refuse any unacceptable fruit. Unripe fruit will be refused too. How to tell if your apples are ripe.
Do you have something else like Grapes or Kiwis? Contact us to see if we might take them.
How do I know if my apples are ready to pick?
The best way to know if your apples are ready is to bite into it and look at the pips (seeds) inside. If they are starting to turn brown or have turned brown then they are ready to pick. They should come off the tree fairly easy. If your fruit is starting to fall off the tree, it’s probably time to pick.
If you wait too long, the fruit tends to get mealy and there isn’t much juice left in them. When the fruit gets to this state, we can’t offer credits.
Do you take windfall apples/pears?
Unfortunately we can’t. While we wash every piece of fruit that comes into our cidery, we can’t guarantee there aren’t any other pathogens that may be on the ground. Especially in the case of pet yards. This will save us having to go through every piece of fruit that we get as well for rotten or bruised apples. It’s true what they say, one bad apple can ruin the whole bunch!
What about bruised apples/pears?
We can’t take bruised fruit because as mentioned above, one bad apple spoils the bunch. There is no guarantee we can get to pressing the apples immediately so it could set the whole batch off. If you do have any questions, please email us at info@sunnycider.ca.
What about scabby apples?
These we will take. They do make amazing cider! As long as they haven’t already fallen are become bruised. They can’t be picked up from the ground though.
Do you take crab apples?
Yes please! As long as they are of an edible variety, we will take them. Dolgo crabs are very popular here in Calgary and we will take ALL of them. Wickson crabs are another one you’ll see a lot of in Calgary. Here are some others you might find. If you are in doubt if they are edible, chances are they aren’t. https://luv2garden.com/crabapple_edible.html
And if you are unsure, please take a picture and send to info@sunnycider.ca and we can verify if we will take them or not.
Don’t wait too long. Some crab apples go “mealy” and at that point we won’t take. If you bite into it and you feel the mealy texture, you’ve waited too long.
What do I use to collect the apples?
Whatever you have. If you have a big rubbermaid tote, you can use that and when you drop it off we will transfer to one of our larger apple bins. If you have big bags like the Ikea blue ones, these will work. Just don’t fill them to the point of not being able to lift.
How do the cider credits work?
It is exactly that. A credit towards cider and cider only. If you have $50 in cider credits, you may shop and take draught cider or bottled cider up to that value. 1 pound of apples/pears = $.35 in cider credits. 1 pound of cherries=$2 in credits and berries = $3 in credits. You don’t need to use the credit immediately, we will have an account with your information on it. We have partnered with Calgary Dollars to store any unused credits.
You can redeem them immediately for any cider in the cider house (on tap, takeaway, or growler fills). No further discounts are applied (Incider, HSCA card etc). Food and merchandise is excluded.
If you’d like to save your credits, we will open up a Calgary Dollars account and add credit to your account. This will be good for anywhere that accepts Calgary Dollars.
Will you prune my fruit tree?
This is something we’ve talked about within SunnyCider. We would love to be able to prune your tree but we don’t have the arborist expertise in order to do so. We are hoping to add an experienced arborist to our team and then be able to offer this service for a fee. As of right now, the answer is no.
If you are an arborist that would like to partner with us, please reach out at info@sunnycider.ca with your proposal.
What if my apples don’t taste very good?
Chances are you may have a heritage cider apple tree. True cider apples aren’t very tasty and probably don’t have much use other than juicing and fermenting. Please donate! These are a rarity in Calgary.
How do you want my fruit packed?
Apples and pears – Please bring fruit in boxes or rubbermaid style totes, not too heavy. 5 gallon pails work good too. We will transfer to our bins and give yours back after weighing. Try and have most of the leaves out. While we do wash, having leaves in the bins makes it really hard to process efficiently.
Berries and Cherries – Please pack these in zip lock freezer bags so they will be ready for freezing. No leaves or stems in these please.