Maple syrup producer tapping trees Image: New Brunswick Maple Association
The New Brunswick maple syrup industry has grown dramatically in the last 15 years, even registering export growth during the pandemic.
New Brunswick Maple Association Executive Director Louise Poitras says industry sales have increased from $3-million in 2006 to a current estimate of $33-million. Exports grew by 20 percent in the last year alone.
Poitras said the province currently produces and exports 7.5 million pounds of maple syrup per year with 67 percent of the province’s maple syrup going to the United States.
“In 2015, when the government allocated another 4,400 hectares of Crown land to producers, taking it up to roughly 14,500 hectares in the province, it gave a big push to the industry,” she said, adding that a lot of money also went into installing state-of-the-art equipment.
Franklin County, Vt. sugarmakers holding onto 5,000 barrels until they receive fair price
HIGHGATE, Vt. A loose coalition of farmers in Franklin County, Vt. are sitting on an estimated 5,000 barrels of new crop syrup until they get what they feel is a fair price to sell it.
“Every producer I talk to says they’re holding their syrup,” said Jason Gagne of Gagne Family Maple in Highgate, Vt. who boils off 32,000 taps. “Nobody wants to let it go because they don’t like the price yet.”
Gagne stopped short of calling it a syrup strike and said there is no organized effort to keep the syrup off the market.
Thing we were happiest to learn: Fear not, pancake lovers, Canada has a strategic syrup reserve. Back in 1966, several of Quebec’s leading syrup producers decided to coordinate their marketing efforts, forming the Federation Of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (FPAQ, which abbreviates the French translation). FPAQ controls 94% of Canada’s maple syrup (and therefore 77% of the world’s supply), and has been likened to a drug cartel. They maintain a permanent supply of liquid gold, the International Strategic Reserve, stored in warehouses across several Quebecois small towns. It was from one such warehouse that our thieves drained 9,571 barrels of syrup.
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