An Introduction to Our Services

About Us

At Glass Brothers we specialise in all things apples, Bramley apples to be exact! From growing to harvest and storage to processing, all produced from our own orchards in the heart of County Armagh, Northern Ireland.

Our aim as apple processors is to produce quality products first time and every time for our customers. And we achieve this by providing complete traceability from the orchard to the finished product. Our expertise bears fruit!

What Makes Us Unique

What makes our Bramley apples so special is the unique growing and harvest process we have at Glass Brothers. Here’s how it works…

We manage our own orchards and we use a fully qualified agronomist (an expert in soil and crop production) to oversee all bud development and to manage our spray programme. What this means is that we can apply the correct products at the right time. It’s a carefully managed process which allows for maximum yield and tasty produce.

We also use natures finest pollinators, bees. The bees come from local bee keepers and are placed in our orchards for essential pollination. Without them we would have a poor crop. Then when the apples have fully grown, they are harvested and stored. Our harvesting usually takes place in the autumn months starting in mid-September until the end of October. It’s a careful process completed by hand and managed by us. Our pickers return year after year to help with the harvest.

It is vital to cool apples down after harvesting and store them within 12 hours for optimum storage. Our updated and innovative storage facilities all contain Ultra Low Oxygen (ULO), meaning the apples are maintained at 5% CO2 and 1% O2, to prevent them from ripening. We use Smartfresh in our storage so our apples remain fresh, firm and greener for longer.

Glass Brothers Services

The Bramley apple is renowned in the UK as the best cooking apple there is. It’s one of a kind flavour comes from the high levels of malic acid and low level sugar. It’s robust structure, flavour and acidic taste makes it the perfect option for almost all culinary ventures.

As well as growth, harvest and storage, we process the Bramley apples into a range of products. Our in-house services produce everything from sliced apple to apple puree and even apple pie fillings. We work closely with our customers to ensure they have the perfect apple for their product. At Glass Brothers, we’ve been providing continuous service to happy clients for over 50 years.

Products

Fresh Bramley Apple
We sell fresh Bramley apple that can be preserved for up to 6 or 21 days. All of our fresh Bramley apple to made to order so you’ll receive your delivery with maximum shelf life.

All of our products are available in a wide variety of cuts and in 15-25kg bags.

Apple Pie Fillings
Our delicious ready to use apple pie filling is blended with sugar and starch, to provide customers with a simple and convenient product. This kitchen cut apple is popular for even cooking and can be made to customer specification for baked or ready to eat applications.

Pulp & Aseptic Puree
We make use of all of our apple skins and trimmings to create our apple pulp/puree, used in jam, sauce and mincemeat manufacture. We’re also the leading UK suppliers of aseptic apple puree. Our recipe is preservative free and contains 100% Bramley apple with a shelf life of 12 months.

Milled Apple
At Glass Brothers, our milled Bramley apple can be preserved with ascorbic acid, sodium metabisulphite or acetic acid depending on customer use. It is used to give a texture to products, used widely in savoury applications.