What it's like at Thatchers cider farm during harvest season

A walk through one of Thatchers' orchards during harvest time shows how cider-making has both changed considerably and hardly at all.

Down one line of tress a tractor pulls a machine with a huge clamp which grabs onto each trunk before violently shaking it, leading to dozens of apples tumbling onto the ground. Meanwhile, down another line, a man uses a pole to knock the last few that are clinging onto the branches.

They are determined to remain as traditional as possible at Thatchers, but the sheer volume of drinks this business now produces means modern technology is vital to keep up with demand.

Thatchers' home remains in a county where the apple is the top fruit, and this time of year is always special for Somerset. It also brings a lot of colour with a range of red and green apple varieties ripening at different times between late August and mid-October.

A clamp shakes dozens of apples off trees in the orchard ready for harvesting

This year's harvest comes after one of the hottest and driest summers on record. However, there are, somewhat surprisingly, apples aplenty in the orchards, despite the challenging weather.

"Apple trees do actually really like sunshine. And, as you've seen, we've had a lot of sunshine this year," said orchard manager Chris Muntz-Torres.

Chris says the successful harvest is down to the foresight of his predecessors.

"What I've been really impressed with is just how resilient our apple trees have been," he said.

"I think that really just shows the really good quality soil that we've got in Somerset. Our ancestors obviously knew something when they were growing apple trees here hundreds of years ago."

The company needs a wide range of apples, varying from sweet to bitter, in order to produce products that keep up with people's changing tastes.

Chris said: "What we're seeing is a lot of growth in ciders made from eating apples as well, which is great because you can eat them off the tree and they're quite tasty, but they make a lighter, more refreshing cider. We like to think there's a cider for everyone and every occasion."

Thatchers' cider-making factory is full of high tech equipment which turns tens of thousands of apples into cider

The apples go from the tree to the tractor-trailer and onto Myrtle Farm, still home to the Thatcher family, but now where great machines suck in tens of thousands of apples every day to be cleaned, pressed, fermented and turned into the drink you see on the supermarket shelves.

The scale of production here is huge with complex networks of conveyor belts filling, sealing and packing cans ready for shipment.

But while robots are handy, people are crucial and they grow talent at Thatchers as well as apples, like apprentice Saskia who is just starting her cider-making journey.

She said: "After trying out everything, I'm more interested in the lab side of things now. I'm hoping to get into actually testing and making up different recipes for cider."

Talent development manager Emma Cox said: "For us, it's about growing our own talent. It's about growing those managers of the future and growing people to be those next generation of cider-makers and making sure that we're providing careers and opportunities for young people in the local community."