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Sugarmakers urged to pay attention to quality
Les Ober, Geauga County OSU Extension | October 5, 2022
BURTON, Ohio—Maple grading and maple quality have become major topics at just about every maple syrup meeting.
Why has this topic taken on a new sense of importance? What is driving this interest?
As the popularity of maple syrup products continues to grow, we are introducing more new customers to pure maple syrup.
As interest grows, so does the number of questions about content, grading and nutritional value.
Consumers ask! What is the difference between pure maple syrup and table syrup? Is this a superior product to table syrup and is it worth the price they are paying for it?
In most stores you find maple syrup right above the pancake flour.
The shelf space is minimal and is often shared with Log Cabin, Mrs. Butterworths, and other corn syrup derivatives. [ MORE ]
New company pledges to revitalize the Sugarhill Containers brand
Peter Gregg | October 4, 2022
TURNERS FALLS, Mass.—The new company that recently bought out Sugarhill Containers is promising to dramatically speed up lead times for sugarmakers to get delivery of plastic molded jugs with custom printing.
“We’re working very hard to aggressively address the backlog,” said Sean R. Fallmann, President and CEO of Atlanta-based Altium Packaging, which in August bought out Plastic Industries, the parent company of Sugarhill.
Fallmann told The Maple News on Tuesday that his company hopes to return to an eight to 12 week lead time for sugarmakers to place an order and receive delivery of screen printed jugs, a longtime favorite container for producers.
"That is our goal and we want to get back to that as quickly as possible," Fallmann said. [ MORE ]
Red maple sap “looks different” than sugar maple sap
Peter Gregg | September 15, 2022
UNDERHILL, Vt.—More love for red maple.
Sugarmakers are flocking to new research from the University of Vermont that shows red maples produce nearly the same amount of sap and sugar as its cousin the sugar maple.
“There is really no difference between what the reds and the sugars are doing of the course of a season,” said Dr. Abby van den Berg of the UVM Proctor Maple Research Center. She gave a presentation on reds at Bascom Maple Farms open house recently.
Van den Berg conducted her study on reds in 2020 and 2021 and this past season conducted further research by segregating sap from the two species and boiling it side by side in two evaporators. [ MORE ]
Pectin from walnut syrup could be the answer
Peter Gregg | September 14, 2022
PETERSBURG, W.V.—Sugarmakers Gary Mongold and Mark Bowers are developing a commercial use for pectin, a residual ooze that sometimes forms in walnut syrup during production.
Mongold, who operates 700-tap Mongold Walnut Farm in Petersburg, W.V. where Bowers also taps maples, made a recent discovery about an alternative use for pectin.
“I heard on the radio a story about how the Mayo Clinic was saying pectin was good for arthritis,” Mongold told The Maple News, during an interview at the West Virginia Maple Producers Association annual meeting this spring.
[ MORE ]
Long awaited new edition producers manual launched
Peter Gregg | July 28, 2022
UNDERHILL, Vt.—The most comprehensive resource for sugarmakers just got better!
The Third edition of the North American Maple Syrup Producers Manual has a new chapter on food safety, as well as updated chapters on sap, syrup, and value-added product production based on the most recent research and modest updates to other chapters.
Remaining chapters have had modest updates.
There are sections on sugarbush management, economics of maple businesses, marketing, and more.
The 434-page Manual is available for free download - just send a blank email to mapleproducersmanual@gmail.com and you will automatically receive a link.
[ MORE ]
Consumers don’t give a hoot about the health benefits of maple, or if it's fake
Peter Gregg | July 15, 2022
SYRACUSE, N.Y.—Sugarmakers may want to rethink how they market syrup because many things they’ve been doing up until now have been wrong, according to new market research.
“U.S. consumers are not familiar and confident about what they know about maple syrup,” said Helen Thomas, executive director of the New York State Maple Producers Association, which co-sponsored a market research study this spring.
More than 1600 consumers were surveyed, including in-person focus groups in six major U.S. cities as part of a study funded by the USDA Acer grant program. The results were revealed during a Zoom meeting this week with the International Maple Syrup Institute.
“A lot of people think they know maple syrup but they don’t,” Thomas said. “There was confusion on what maple syrup really was.”
[ MORE ]
Federation breaks ground on new storage warehouse
Peter Gregg | July 5, 2022
LONGUEUIL, Que.—The Québec Maple Syrup Producers federation last week broke ground on a new $14 million warehouse in Plessisville, Que. that will become the third warehouse of its Global Strategic Maple Syrup Reserve.
“We just had a record harvest of 211 million pounds this spring that will allow us to replenish our reserve,” said federation President Luc Goulet.
The new warehouse will be 104,000 square feet and will hold 52 million pounds. It is expected to open in the spring of 2023.
It will be the second largest warehouse in the reserve, just after the Laurierville installation which holds up to 55 million pounds.
With the third installation in Saint-Antoine-de-Tilly, the Strategic Reserve will ultimately have a total storage capacity of 133 million pounds (216,000 barrels) of maple syrup. [ MORE ]
Done deal: H2O Innovation closes on Leader sale
Peter Gregg | July 1, 2022
SWANTON, Vt.—The installation of a new $1 million state-of-the-art tubing extruder will be the first order of business following the H2O Innovation buyout of Leader Evaporator Co., a deal that closed on Thursday night during a ceremony at the Leader plant in Swanton.
Paperwork was signed and champagne was flowing, as H2O became the new owners of the Leader Evaporator Co., which was founded in 1888 and reincorporated by a handful of prominent sugarmaking families as exclusive stockholders in 1964.
Meanwhile, H2O Innovation is a publicly traded company from Quebec City, Que. with a $250 million market capitalization with ambitions to significantly grow the maple side of its water purification business.
Rock Gaulin will run the operation in the U.S., officials said. Heading up the sales force in Swanton for the new H2O Innovation/Leader hybrid will be Kyle Lothian. [ MORE ]
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