Perry is ‘dead’ declares leading cidermaker Westons after ditching tag to woo younger shoppers

Family-run cidermaker Westons has hailed a decision to ditch the term ‘perry’ last year for helping revive sales of its pear cider.

The Herefordshire supplier turned its back on the descriptor after replacing its Henry Westons Perry with Henry Westons Vintage Pear in February 2024.

Reframing its perry as a pear cider – while also dropping its abv from 7.4% to 6% abv – had helped to revitalise the tipple, Westons head of business development Darryl Hinksman said. Off-trade sales are up 488% to £660k, and well ahead of the £20k amassed by Henry Westons Perry in the year prior [NIQ 104 w/e 19 April 2025].

“It was about rejuvenating the product to make it appeal to younger people and bringing it properly into the Henry Westons family,” Hinksman said. “We also made the liquid sweeter and more accessible to appeal to a broader range of cider drinkers.”

Asked if this meant perry – a drink once reportedly described by Napoleon Bonaparte as “the champagne of the English” – was officially dead, Hinksman said: “Yes. People didn’t know what perry meant. We were constantly having to explain that perry is a cider-type drink made from perry pears, but [that] you can actually make perry from any pears.”

While Vintage Pear was “relatively small” compared to other ciders in the Westons roster, it was “providing incremental growth” for the wider Henry Westons brand, Hinksman said.

“Henry Westons Vintage continues to grow as well, so these other variants are not cannibalising the parent brand,” he added.

Revenues at Westons, based in the village of Much Marcle, southwest of Hereford, climbed 12% to £105.2m in the year to 31 March 2024.

The supplier – which also makes Stowford Press and supplies own-label cider to UK retailers including Aldi, Lidl and M&S – is yet to file accounts for the year to 31 March 2025, but was expecting to report revenue growth of 6% to £111.5m, Hinksman said.

Westons’ £5m capex spend

To keep up with growing demand, Westons has this autumn invested £5m to increase its cider storage capacity by almost 4.5 million litres, to 28.5 million litres.

A total of 24 new storage tanks, each of which has a capacity of 185,000 litres, have been added to enable Westons to mature more of its cider for longer. The expansion should see Westons through until 2030.

“We continue to make cider in the traditional way,” said Hinksman. “We still buy the apples in, we still chop them up, mill them, press them, and store the juice until it’s ready to be blended and packaged. So we have to invest to be able to store that juice to continue to make cider in the same way.”

Contrary to recent media reports, it had not been a bumper year for cider apples, Hinksman said.

Hot weather combined with a lack of rain meant that although sugar content was up in this year’s apples, the volume of juice extracted was down by around 3% per tonne at Westons, he revealed.

“It’s been a year of exceptional quality, but not necessarily the highest yield,” he added.