2026 Season Apple Pressing Service Update (Our 20th Anniversary!)

It’s our 20^th anniversary of Drovers Hill Farm this September! We thought, what better way to celebrate than by finally getting around to writing our very first blog post?

Reaching this 20 year milestone is the perfect opportunity to pause and send a heartfelt thank you to everyone who has supported us over the years. Whether you've been bringing us fruit since opening our apple pressing service or you've just discovered us for the very first time, thank you.

We also wanted to share a few exciting changes we've been making behind the scenes since last year. Mark has spent many dark winter days digitalising our processes to make things much smoother for everyone and we're very excited to see these updates in action for the 2026 season!

New Online Reservation System for Apple Pressing Drop Offs & Quicker Collections

Our website has been updated with a new reservations page so that you can reserve a fruit drop-off space for our apple pressing service on your chosen day. Taking learnings from a very busy season last year, this process improves how we manage capacity during the busiest days of the season and makes the booking in process much easier. We have also streamlined how we locate everyone's juice once it is boxed up ready for collection. This will make collections so much quicker as it will mean no more frantic hunting for your boxes of juice only to find them right where we started looking in the first place (we know lots of you have experienced that one!)

Easing the Squeeze in the Barn

As there never seems to be quite enough space during the busy apple season, we are creating a safe, dedicated working space right in front of the apple barn. If this helps ease the squeeze (pun intended), we hope to cover the area in the future. 

Upgrading our bottle boxes

As many of you will know, we are always looking at ways to improve our technology. Sometimes this is because we need more capacity or simply because a piece of equipment is proving unreliable. This was the case with the bottle box packer last year. So, in January, we finally managed to take a holiday and go to the LAMMA show in Birmingham and to a packing machine company in Lancashire. It wasn't Barbados (as we would have liked!), but on the bright side, we now have something which is much more reliable. It also means your cases of juice are much more sturdy to transport home and store.

Building on last year's little farm shop & new labels

After some lovely feedback, we've expanded on the "little shop" idea from last year. We're still strictly selling things we make or grow ourselves, but our produce will now be displayed in proper units rather than the wobbly table we used last year.

We also had some good news in July; we were granted a premises licence to sell our cider throughout the entire apple pressing season. Mark came to the rescue on that one too, creating an acceptable site plan for the application.

Finally, we've upgraded our labels! Some of the old favourite designs remain and we have added new designs to the range too. Our label printer was due for replacement as well, and the new one is making a real difference to the label & print quality.

Around the Farm: Sheep, Meadows & 30 year planning

Beyond the apples and cider making, our sheep are doing great. We are experimenting with some new drought-resistant grass leys (with the summer we've had this has been rather timely!) Since buying the land, we have already noticed a change in the seasons, so have been working out what is going to work best for the farm for the next 20 years. 

Since the pigs went three years ago, we have been working out what to do next. After considering everything from vineyards and lavender growing, we have decided to focus on creating new grazing and forage leys for our sheep (and to sell to other organic farms). At the same time, we're establishing a new natural chalkland meadow to adjoin our SSSI (the woodland on west side of Lodge Hill). It’s a 30-year project which will increase biodiversity in our area while preserving the Chilterns Landscape.

New Paws Around the Place

As many of you know, Hope was on her own all last year, but in February, she was joined by a new friend! We were pleased to add Pip to the family (as in apples, of course!). Pip is currently a bit of a handful but Hope is looking happy again, if a little tired, from the puppy sitting. 

Thank you once again for the last 20 years. We can't wait to welcome you back this season!

Nicola & Mark