Sustainability
Sustainability is Important
All who work at Sheppy’s are committed to the protection of the environment and the prevention of pollution.
We actively seek to minimise waste, including packaging, promote recycling, reduce energy use and water consumption, reduce harmful emissions and, where possible, to work with suppliers who also have sound environmental policies.
David Sheppy
Our farming environment is everything to the business we run at Three Bridges Farm and with a century here already behind us, a sustainable future is a priority. We have made significant investments in waste management and solar panels as well as many smaller changes across the business, but there is always so much more which can and should be done.
The pressure on all farmers to farm more intensively has been with us since the war and the priority now is to keep finding ways to combine commercial farming and orcharding with nature-friendly practices which allow nature to have just some completely wild space. We already have a wide variety of wildlife living in and on our craggy and hollowed-out standard apple trees, and just being less “tidy” out on the farm can help to increase this biodiversity.
WET System
in 2007 we installed a WET (Wetland Ecosystem Treatment) system for the management of effluents from cider production.
Sculpted into our impervious clay sub-soil and planted with thousands of willows and marginal plants, the series of ponds is designed to absorb and degrade the effluents in a natural way.
The self contained system makes it unnecessary to tanker waste away whilst also offering a habitat for all sorts of wildlife, including birds such as snipe, starlings moorhens, swallows, warblers and many more.
Bees and wildlife
At Sheppy's we value the role wild bees and honey bees play not only in our business, but inhuman life as a whole, and we have a couple of hives on the farm t help with pollination.
Situated in specifically located areas throughout the farm we have beehives where we encourage pollination.
varied habitats
Mature trees are an important element of any wild habitat ad our old oaks, willows, poplars (wind breaks) ash, alder and other species together with our very old standard apple trees create a varied habitat for many insects, animals and birds.
Younger trees (like the thousands of willows in our WET system) and hedges also offer food and safety to the many species which live n the farm. Seasonal visitors like redwings and fieldfares (winter) and swallows (summer)have marked the changing seasons for generations and continue to give pleasure to our human visitors who can enjoy the duck pond in a mature woodland setting
Orchard trees
Our 90 acres of orchards include one certified organic orchard, whose antient (100 years old) trees have reached their full size at about half the size of an oak tree. Our other orchards, *bush" orchards are younger and have been planted more intensively with up to 300 trees per acre. This is a less rich habitat, but the orchard margins are left wild and filled with flowers to encourage pollinators