They did call to get my side of it. But none have called to follow up on it. The media has been reporting heavily on the E. coli problem in cider for the past year. A television station in Detroit purchased cider from about 10 area mills and had it tested. None came up positive.
Consumers keep hearing it and they start to question the safety of cider.
This uncertainty has had a negative impact on sales of cider in Michigan, Tritten said. Many farm marketers have told him that customers are leaving the market without a jug of cider this year. Early in the season cider makers thought sales were down because of the lateness of the year and the warm fall, but now it appears to be bigger than these two things. People are now asking for pasteurized cider for safety reasons. Nicholson presses over 200,000 gallons each year and decided to put in a pasteurizer this year because he says the market is moving toward the product.