Poisoning Takes Bite Out of Cider Sales

Back in September, McCutcheon’s Apple Products Inc. began cooking its apple cider for a few minutes, largely to keep the juice from spoiling too quickly.

The Frederick, Md., company didn’t note the change on its labels. That might have hurt sales to people who drink cider because it’s “natural”: dark, cloudy, full of body, crushed and put immediately into a bottle or jug.

But now, what was once a process to hide might become something to tout because of a food poisoning outbreak in the West that has been traced to unpasteurized fruit juices. The outbreak, which sickened at least 49 people and was responsible for the death of a 16-month-old child, has turned the country cider shy.

The Food and Drug Administration is weighing new requirements to fend off E. coli and other bacteria. Cider pressers could be forced to pasteurize the juice or give the fresh apples a chemical bath.

The outbreak has put the cider mills in their own squeeze: Start heating cider or adding chemicals and it’s no longer really cider--a product with the rugged tang of our Colonial past and trendier appeal to the growing market for natural foods.

In addition, equipment to pasteurize juice may cost tens of thousands of dollars, too much for small farms and boutique presses.

On the other hand, frightened customers are costing money.

“Where you were selling a couple of thousand gallons a week, you’re now only doing maybe a couple of hundred gallons a week,” said Jim Graves, owner of Graves Mountain Farms in Syria, Va., about 40 miles from Charlottesville, where supermarkets carry his product.

Graves, like many small cider makers, says he already takes safety measures. He doesn’t use fallen apples that could come in contact with animal droppings, and he sterilizes the cloths used in the presses. But pasteurization is off-limits.

“If you pasteurize it, then it becomes juice,” he said, an argument repeated over and over in apple country. Pasteurization kills the normally harmless germs that cause foods to spoil or ferment.

That’s where a lot of wordplay comes in. In a strict sense, there’s really no such thing as cider unless the juice is partially or fully fermented--hard cider.

But the term “sweet cider” for unfermented apple juice has been around for decades. The lack of hard definitions means even that plain, clear apple juice can be labeled “cider” for roadside stands.

Purists argue there’s a big difference between incipient hard stuff and the insipid, amber apple juice that could just as easily be made from imported concentrate. Lasting only 10 days, untreated cider requires that one seize the moment or sip vinegar.

Others, like McCutcheon’s, say experience has taught them otherwise.

“I think because of the type of pasteurization we do, it doesn’t change the flavor or the texture or the color,” said company president Robert McCutcheon III. The company heats the juice to 160 degrees for about four minutes. Now, it’s considering adding a sticker saying the juice has been pasteurized “for enhanced product safety.”

Ray Hetnar, owner of RC Hetnar Orchards in Epping, N.H., also is weighing his next step. The outbreak has caused a 70% drop in sales entering the usual Thanksgiving season peak.

He’s already taken a number of measures over the last two years, including adding a benzoate preservative to block E. coli, a big compromise for a natural product. He’s also exploring pasteurization, chlorine rinses or--a longshot--ultraviolet treatment.

“When you pasteurize, it definitely takes something away from it,” he said. Then again, “When done properly it’s not going to affect it that much.”

Hetnar, his state’s largest producer, worries that too much regulation will wipe out the small mills that crush for roadside stands or a few stores.

“I just hate to see the big guys take over with their pasteurizers, and the little guys get left on the wayside, because I was there one day.”