A community event to celebrate the autumn apple harvest, and with a focus on preserving surplus produce, brought together more than 70 people in Wanaka at the weekend.
From primary schoolchildren to the elderly they chopped, pressed or cooked the donated and foraged fruit to make apple chutney and pure
apple juice at the seventh Wanaka Autumn Apple Drive at Rippon Hall on Saturday.
Wastebusters project manager and one of the event organisers, Sophie Ward, said "it was seeing so many apple trees around Wanaka with fruit falling to the ground and going to waste that prompted the first Wanaka Apple Drive more than seven years ago."
All the fruit was donated including 10 banana boxes of Granny Smith apples picked by Ward and other volunteers from a former commercial apple orchard in Lowburn.
"The owner has all these beautiful Granny Smith apple trees and he hates to see the fruit wasted so he gets in touch every year and says come and pick the fruit," Ward said.
