Before Fentenfenna, and before we got our hands on the shiny new kit, there was Mark, a neighbour with too many apples, and a homemade press in a garage.

Wasted Apple was founded by Mark Rudge in 2013 after a conversation with a neighbour about apple trees producing more fruit than they could use.

Mark couldn't stand the idea of perfectly good apples going to waste. So, with the help of his family, he started turning them into something useful and delicious, beginning with cider made in the garage using a homemade apple press.

It was a simple idea, really: good apples shouldn't go to waste.

That idea grew. More apples arrived, the equipment improved, experiments were made, and Wasted Apple became something much bigger than the first few batches made at home.

Years later, Wasted Apple found its way to Fentenfenna, where Mark became one of the farm's founding tenants. In 2024, when he decided it was time for somebody else to take the business forward, Fentenfenna Farm CIC became its new custodian.

Thankfully, Mark hasn't disappeared into the apple-scented sunset. He's still a big part of Fentenfenna as a Non-Executive Director, and an important part of Wasted Apple's continuing story.

If you've got more apples than you know what to do with, we'd quite like them.

Garden trees, community orchards, farms, schools, if the fruit is good and it's going spare, we'd rather turn it into something delicious than watch it rot.

Your unwanted apples could be in our next bottle.