Meet Charles - our Apple Cider Vinegar producer from Rangiora, New Zealand.

We asked Charles, “What’s the best part of your job?”, to which he half-jokes “the day the Ceres Organics order comes in.” Likewise, one of our favourite days is when Apple Cider Vinegar arrives at Ceres Organics HQ ready to go out to our customers.

It all begins with organically grown apples, which start their life on an orchard in sunny Rangiora in New Zealand, carefully looked after by Charles and his extended family (even Grandpa gets out in the orchard!). Although they’re deemed ‘rejects’ by larger retailers aesthetic standards, these apples do just fine as the sole ingredient in our Apple Cider Vinegar. No part of the apple is wasted in this organic operation; the by-product (apple pulp) is sent to local dairy farms as healthy feed for cows. The juice extracted from these apples then spends six weeks fermenting before being packed into the Ceres Organics glass bottle.

The top quality and taste of Ceres Organics Apple Cider Vinegar is clearly recognised. With demand continuing to grow in both supermarkets and health food stores it has become one of our customer's favourite products.

“We love having a product in our hero range that’s New Zealand grown and made. If only there were more large scale certified organic farms in New Zealand able to keep up with demand” said Noel Josephson, Ceres Organics Founder.

Our partnership with Charles and his family started around 17 years ago when Charles approached us about distributing his families new certified organic Apple Cider Vinegar. 

Charles told us “We decided on making apple cider vinegar, but we wanted to make it the healthiest and best quality possible. We knew that conventional growing means spraying apples with who knows what, and as we loved the idea of organics and getting back to basics, we decided this was the only way forward for us.”

Their apple trees took a knock when they started the strict 5-year process of converting their farm to organic, but now they’re resilient and strong. So strong in fact that they’ve expanded the farm by purchasing more land next door to keep up with the growing demand for organic apples. Charles will continue to spend his days being splashed by organic apple cider vinegar, while New Zealand, and beyond, continue to drink it.

Let’s have an Apple Cider Vinegar shot to that!