As harvest gets under way across Britain’s orchards, the UK cider industry is uniting behind a campaign to highlight how varied the category has become.
The harvest 2026 ‘Find Your Cider’ campaign, backed by the National Association of Cider Makers, encourages cider drinkers, both committed and casual, to explore the breadth of the category and discover new styles worth adding to their repertoire.
Messaging is going out across three key dates this autumn – today (25th September), National Apple Day on 21st October, and 13th November. Each date has its own focus, from the breadth of styles now available in the category, the apples that go into cider, to the orchard teams and the cider makers behind every bottle and pint.
The NACM has been highlighting cider as one of the UK’s ‘proudly homegrown’ drinks industries.
More than 95% of the cider consumed in Britain is actually made here, and the UK is the world’s largest cider market, worth £3.17 billion, according to Westons Cider Report data drawn from CGA, Circana and Kantar.
The country is home to around 450 cider makers, ranging from small family businesses to global exporters, who together support 65,000 jobs and £1.4 billion in wages across the UK, according to analysis by Oxford Economics.
The annual apple harvest is the busiest and most important time of the cider calendar. Cider makers work with more than 300 farmers across 14,500 acres of orchards grown specifically for cider, and every bottle starts with apples harvested and pressed at this time of year.
Pubs, bars, hotels and restaurants remain central to the category. Two-thirds of cider’s value is spent in the on-trade, and on-trade cider spend grew 3.1% last year.
But key to the Find Your Cider campaign is the ‘exciting period of innovation’ gripping the sector, with growing interest in lower and no alcohol styles and new formats giving drinkers more ways to enjoy cider than ever before.
Chair of the National Association of Cider Makers, Martin Thatcher, said: “Cider is such a wide and varied category. It’s the skill of the cider maker that turns a humble apple into such a broad range of tastes and styles.
“Find Your Cider is about encouraging people to try something different this autumn and discover ciders that suit far more drinking occasions than they might expect.”
Public affairs director at the NACM, Mark Hopper, said: “Cider already reaches a huge range of drinkers, but there’s real scope for people to enjoy it on more occasions, not just the ones where they might automatically reach for it.
“Find Your Cider is about showing how varied the category has become, from crisp and refreshing styles right through to something richer and more complex.”
