Volunteers sought to pick elderflowers across Peterborough for renowned drinks maker Belvoir Farm

A leading soft drinks maker is appealing for volunteers from Peterborough to help collect tonnes of elderflower that go into making the company’s world-famous cordial.

Belvoir Farm, which has been producing its elderflower cordial for 40 years, is looking for volunteers to join its annual harvest to help pick the many wild elderflowers growing across the Cambridgeshire countryside.

Sustained poor weather so far this year means the 2024 harvest is starting two weeks earlier than usual and will get under way on Monday (May 20) instead of the traditional start at the beginning of June.

And pickers from Peterborough can drop off the elderflowers they pick at Sacrewell Farm & Countryside Centre from Monday to Saturday from 2pm to 5pm.

Belvoir Farm is paying pickers £3.50 per kilo of flowers delivered.

All flowers must be fresh, so the company is asking for pickers to deliver on the day they pick, as they will go brown very quickly and become unsuitable to use.

Pev Manners, founder of Belvoir Farm, based in the Vale of Belvoir, Nottingham, said: “The past few months have been a wash out and whilst we’re very glad for the sunshine, it’s created an unprecedented situation where we’re having to fast-track picking, so we hope our wonderful Cambridge community will come out in force once again and help us bring in the flowers.

“It’s this dedication from the hundreds of people who come on board each year to earn some extra income and help us pick every elderflower on the farm that’s kept our cordial going for 40 years and it’s still made to my mum’s same recipe she created at the kitchen table all those years ago.

Elderflower picking also takes place from Belvoir Farm’s own 60-acre organic plantation as well as from the wild surrounding hedgerows found across Leicestershire and the company’s other adjoining counties.

The flowers are infused within 24 hours of picking and turned into the rich and fragrant cordial which is then bottled and shipped in their millions to most leading supermarkets across the UK and around the world.