Northern climate and apple varieties as a source for innovation: agricultural productivity and sustainability in northern apple production for ice cider, a sweet dessert wine in Umeå, Sweden

A desire to live in Northern Sweden, ambitious attitudes towards producing high quality products, and curiosity of wines has been leading causes to the establishment of EIP-AGRI Operational Group “Commercial productive apple growing in a northern climate – innovation for new climate resilient agriculture in northern Europe” in Umeå, Northern Sweden.

Northern rural areas of Europé face challenges in making living from traditional agriculture, limited number of commercially cultivated species, and generally harsh climate conditions. The story of the EIP-AGRI Operational group “Commercial productive apple growing in a northern climate – innovation for new climate resilient agriculture in northern Europe” in Umeå, region of Västerbotten, Sweden, started well before its establishment from a vision of a man who desired to live in Northern Sweden. With the desire to live in the region, an entrepreneur Andreas Sundgren, established Brännland Iscider in the village of Vännäsby near Umeå in 2010 and started to make ice cider in a basement in Brännland, Umeå in 2011. Since the beginning of Brännland Iscider, the aim has been to produce a drink that would be known all over the world, a vision to create the best sweet wine in the world. The first two years of the company were full of learning through trials. Whereas the first aim was to produce cider, a simpler product than ice cider, through new discoveries in trials during the first two years it became clear that northern Swedish apples were best suited for ice cider production. An observation of having two local assets – access to both cold weather and Swedish high acidity dessert apples suitable for production of naturally sweet cider – paved the way for starting successful ice cider production in the region. Through combining these two local assets, Brännland Iscider became a winemaker instead of a cider maker. The international networks of Brännland Iscider including winemaking experts, ice cider production experts and apple growing experts have paved the way to create a unique wine made from apples. Now the ice cider, a sweet dessert wine, made from apples in Northern Sweden is among the best ones in the world and it is also the first Swedish wine ever served at Nobel banquet in 2022. The future vision has been levelled up in the EIP-AGRI operational group to involve wider stakeholder population especially farmers, regional governments, academia, and business – both in Sweden and at international level.

This blog text is an abbreviation of the original FOREST4EU article. Learn more about the development process of this EIP-Agri operational group, production of ice cider and future prospects in the 8 page article in English: https://www.forest4eu.eu/wp-content/uploads/2024/12/Article_EFI_ENG.pdf

Tanja Kähkönen