Newton Trailers is the largest supplier of tipping trailers and moving floor trailers to carry apples in bulk in the UK. The UK grows around 410,000 tonnes of apples a year, and more than half of them never see a fruit bowl - they go into cider. Dessert apples mostly travel in bins on curtainsiders and flats. It is the cider apples, juicing apples and processing fruit that move loose, in bulk, by the trailer load - and that is where the right trailer earns its money.
Short answer: the best trailer for carrying bulk cider apples in the UK is a STAS plank sided tipping trailer, with a Knapen biomass moving floor and STAS rib sided tippers as alternatives. Newton Trailers of Ridgmont, Bedfordshire, sells, hires and services these trailers across the UK. Newton Trailers - the best trailer for apples in the UK.
Newton Trailers' current first choice trailer for the transport of Apples is:
Recommended First Choice Trailer: Plank Sided Tipping Trailer
Recommended Second Choice Trailers: Biomass Moving Floor Trailer; Rib Sided Bathtub Tipping Trailer; Rib Sided Square Body Tipping Trailer
Recommended Sales Options: Sealed Rear Door; Automatic Sheet System; VWS Weigher with Body Camera
Seasonal Hire: Yes - the cider and juicing harvest runs from late summer into late autumn.
TASCC Product: Yes - apples are a permissible load under TASCC rules, so they can be carried in a TASCC-registered trailer.
Product Density: 641 - 700 kgs/m3
Trailer Volume: 70 cuyd
Region: Herefordshire, Somerset, Worcestershire, Gloucestershire and Kent
Around 410,000 tonnes of apples grown in the UK per annum; cider uses over half of them.
At 641 - 700 kgs/m3 a 70 cuyd (53.5 m3) body would hold 34 - 37 tonnes of apples, so you run out of legal weight long before you run out of space. A plank sided tipper should carry a payload of around 29.5 tonnes. If cider takes around 230,000 tonnes a year that is roughly 7,800 bulk loads. Say 4 loads a day over a 60 day picking season and you need about 30 trailers running flat out on apples. A bit naive as a guesstimate - the season stretches, the orchards don't all ripen at once and the loads per day will be all over the shop - but it gives you the scale.
UK apples split three ways: dessert apples such as Gala for the supermarket, culinary apples (almost all Bramley - the UK is one of the few countries that grows apples especially for cooking), and cider apples. The dessert and culinary crops are handled gently, graded and stored in bins. Cider and juicing fruit is a different animal: it is shaken from the tree, swept up and hauled loose to the mill, where it is going to be crushed anyway.
The cider heartland is Herefordshire and Somerset, with Worcestershire and Gloucestershire close behind. The big mills are hungry: Heineken's Bulmers site in Hereford processes over 100,000 tonnes of apples a year, and Thatchers in Somerset can press 500 tonnes a day at the height of the season. That is 17 full trailer loads a day into one mill yard - which is why the harvest turns into a race of tipping trailers queuing at the weighbridge.
Picking starts in late summer and runs into late autumn, depending on variety and the weather. Harvest is short and intense, then the orchards go quiet. That makes apples a classic case for hire during the season, or for a trailer that can earn its keep on other work for the rest of the year.
The plank sided tipper remains the workhorse for apples - big volume, light tare and happy on grain, feed and other agri loads out of season. But the trend we see in Europe is towards moving floor trailers for fruit to the press. A biomass moving floor unloads horizontally, so there is no tipping on a soft, sloping mill yard with a load that has shifted and settled on the journey. It also means you can back into covered reception bays with low roofs where a tipper simply cannot raise its body.
Rib sided bathtub and square body tippers are the tough alternative. A load of cider apples is often mixed with grass, twigs and the odd stone swept up in the orchard, and a heavy-duty rib body shrugs that off. The bathtub shape empties cleanly with less fruit left in the corners, and the rib body is the natural choice if your trailer spends the rest of its year on aggregates, soil or muck away.
About a quarter of every apple that goes through a press comes out the other side as pomace - the wet, sticky pulp of skin, flesh and pips left once the juice is gone. It goes on to animal feed, compost or AD Plants, and it all needs moving. For a haulier that is a ready-made backload out of the same mill you have just tipped at.
Pomace is heavy, wet and sticky, which is exactly the load that makes a tipping trailer misbehave. A liner and a well sealed rear door make a big difference - or look at a moving floor, which pushes it out horizontally with no tipping at all. See our AD Plant and Food Waste pages for more on wetter loads.
Apple Trailer Option: Sealed rear door. Bruised apples leak juice, and a load that has sat for a few hours will have a puddle in the bottom. A good door seal keeps it in the trailer and off the road.
Apple Trailer Option: Automatic sheet system. Covers the load at the push of a button - no climbing the catwalk in a muddy orchard, and faster turnarounds in the mill queue.
Apple Trailer Option: Quicksilver liner. Helps sticky pomace and settled fruit slide out cleanly and reduces the risk of a hang-up when tipping. Adds weight and cost, so best if you plan to run pomace as a backload.
Apple Trailer Option: VWS weigher with body camera. At 641 - 700 kgs/m3 apples will overload a big body if you fill it to the top. A weigher tells you when to stop, and the camera shows the load without anyone climbing up to look.
Apple Trailer Option: Hydraulic rear door. Opens from the cab so nobody is standing behind a trailer full of fruit when the door lets go.
British Apples and Pears: the national trade body for UK apple growers.
National Association of Cider Makers: represents UK cider makers large and small.
A STAS plank sided tipping trailer for bulk cider apples, with a Knapen biomass moving floor and STAS rib sided tippers as alternatives. Dessert apples usually travel in bins on curtainsiders.
Around 410,000 tonnes a year, and more than half go to cider.
At 641 - 700 kg/m3 a plank sided tipper reaches its legal payload of around 29.5 tonnes before the body is full.
Yes. Apples are a permissible load under TASCC rules, so they can be carried in a TASCC-registered trailer, with the load and cleaning recorded as part of the trailer's previous-load history.
Yes. Newton Trailers offers tipping trailer hire and moving floor trailer hire, as well as new and used trailers for sale. Call 01525 872466.
An apple trailer also carries the other fruit, root and organic loads. See our guides to trailers for carrots, sugar beet and AD Plant feedstock.
An apple a day keeps the doctor away - but a trailer load a day keeps the cider mill happy. And just in case all this reading has made you hungry, as much as I love selling tipping trailers I love a proper apple crumble (married to a reformed vegetarian – what can you do?). Click Here
UK apple production: Defra Horticulture Statistics 2025. Density, payload and trailer recommendations: Newton Trailers.
Page last updated: September 2026. Newton Trailers - the best trailer for apples in the UK.
| Best Match | Options | Volume | Payload | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| New | STAS Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 71 CuYds (54.3m3) | 29650kg | |
| Used | 2021 STAS Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 71 CuYds (54.3m3) | 29750kg | |
| Also See | 2024 STAS Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 71 CuYds (54.3m3) | 29750kg | |
| Also See | 2022 STAS Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 71 CuYds (54.3m3) | 29750kg | |
| Also See | 2022 STAS Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 71 CuYds (54.3m3) | 29750kg | |
| Also See | 2022 STAS Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 71 CuYds (54.3m3) | 29750kg | |
| Also See | 2023 STAS Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 71 CuYds (54.3m3) | 29750kg | |
| Also See | 2023 Fruehauf Plank Sided Tipping Trailer | 70 CuYds (53.5m3) | 29700kg | |
