‘Disastrous’ Maple Syrup Season will Likely Cause Commercial Price Hike
POKESHAW — Maple syrup production in New Brunswick fell to only about half of last year’s output this spring, thanks to unseasonal weather, leading an industry spokesperson to describe the situation as a “disaster.”
“We are seeing maple syrup producers that are facing $500,000 to $800,000 in losses [in potential revenue],” says Louise Poitras, the executive director of the New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association.
The industry association for maple syrup producers throughout the province unveiled the results of its survey of its members’ production for the season on Monday. It shows producers got only between two and 2.3 pounds of maple syrup per tap this past season.
“That’s about half of what we got last year,” says Poitras.
Last year was a record-breaking year for maple syrup production in New Brunswick, so industry watchers were expecting a bit of a drop in production this season. But the results of the latest survey show this season was particularly bad; 38.6 per cent worse than a normal year when producers get about 3.5 pounds of maple syrup per tap.
Three years ago, New Brunswick’s maple syrup producers saw the growing worldwide demand for their products and asked the province to allot 12,600 more hectares of Crown land, an area almost as big as Fredericton, for maple syrup production.
That would almost double the amount of land under production for maple syrup in the province, pushing it up to 27,000 hectares from the current 14,400.
“In bad years, this would help because, with more land under production, it would be more profitable,” says Frederick Dion, the president of the New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association. “It would also allow us to save our forests which are now cut for lumber.”
Many maple syrup producers have already identified crown lands near their properties which they hope to eventually put into production to make the sweet, sticky stuff.
Every year that goes by, they worry lumber companies will swoop in and harvest the wood on that Crown land, including at least some of the maples, says Dion.
Faced with a disappointing season, David Prosser of J Prosser & Sons Pure Maple Products is taking comfort in the cost savings his family-owned business will see this year. They’re located halfway between Moncton and Saint John and last year invested in reverse osmosis equipment to evaporate maple tree sap.
“We are always looking to improve our carbon footprint, so we invested in a new reverse osmosis to save oil in our evaporating process and we invested in our processing facility to make it more efficient,” says Prosser.
“With the cost of fuel oil this year, without new investment, it would have been extremely hard to break even on the processing side. The investment helped us offset our use of oil, for not only this year but also many years to come.”
Despite the lower production of maple syrup this year, some of the smaller and well-established maple syrup operations are doing okay.
At Riordon Maple Products in Pokeshaw, on the Acadian Peninsula, George Riordon is expecting to end this year in the black despite the downturn in production.
“I was 70 to 75 per cent of a normal year, so I’m very satisfied,” he says. “I have no debt, I pay as I go, that makes a difference. People with large payrolls, that makes a difference.
“I only hire two people during the season and I do a lot of it myself.”
With the silviculture he’s been doing over the past few years, Riordon figures he could triple the size of his operation – if he wanted to – without ever touching Crown land because he already owns about 500 acres, about 25 of which are under production for maple syrup. A retired civil servant, Riordon also cuts and sells firewood.
Riordon Maple Products hasn’t needed to increase its prices in years and isn’t expecting to do so this year.
But other maple producers think they may have to raise their prices just to keep up with inflation and the extra costs associated with having to chase down maple syrup to transform into various products.
David Briggs, the owner of Briggs Maples in Hillsborough, says the price of bottles of maple syrup may have to go up five to 10 per cent in the coming weeks for commercial buyers.
“The minimum wage is up. We have to pay insurance on Crown land this year. The cost of the bottles has gone up,” says Briggs. “The cost of doing this is going up and we have to pass on these costs to consumers.”
Briggs admits he hasn’t yet sat down and figured out exactly how much all of these cumulative cost increases will affect his business.
“It would probably scare me,” he says.
Although Briggs Maples gets sap to make its own maple syrup from its 12,000 taps, the slower season means Briggs is now going to have to buy maple syrup from other producers to transform it into products this year.
And the scarcity of syrup means Briggs is facing higher prices to buy it and more transportation costs to bring it to his operation.
“If I’ve got to go up north, five hours away instead of an hour away, to get syrup from New Brunswick producers, that’s going to affect my costs,” he says. “There’s less of it, so the price of it goes up.”
Poitras says maple syrup producers are frustrated and want the province to allocate more land for maple syrup production. Briggs agrees – and explains maples on Crown lands are increasingly in danger of being cut by forestry companies the longer the New Brunswick government waits.
“We need to be investing in those trees and that land or we’re not going to have a maple syrup industry if this keeps happening,” he says. “We need access to it yesterday.”
James Risdon is a Huddle contributor covering New Brunswick. Send him your feedback and story ideas: [email protected].