Small dairy farms have largely disappeared from the American farm landscape and medium dairy farms are following. Safety regulations required producers to switch from milk cans to refrigerated double-walled stainless tanks.
A lot of small dairies, like the one my dad grew up on, could not afford the new equipment and got out. Others borrowed money to buy the new equipment and when milk prices were held down by competition and the market power of processors, sooner or later they could not make loan payments and went bankrupt.
Any sugarmaker who lived through that can probably see those ducks lining up on the horizon again. Regulation in sugaring and costs of compliance are going up. Look at the Vermont sugarhouse certification checklist for an example. It is about safety, not about food quality, meaning cost without a corresponding increase in value that consumers experience. The amount of equipment and infrastructure you need to sugar and its price are increasing.
On the other side of the equation, the strategic maple reserve and the quota system in Quebec put downward pressure on price. It serves other functions, but it certainly keeps a lid on price. If small and medium sugarmakers do not find a way to get a higher price per gallon, the pressures could gradually squeeze them out of the market. We have to find a better way forward.
There is a lot sugarmakers can learn from the coffee industry. Brazil is a huge coffee producer and because they are the 800 pound gorilla, the price of coffee in Brazil influences prices of other coffees around the world. A very important difference and clue for a way forward in maple sugaring is that there is more than one market price for coffee. Indonesian coffee gets a premium price. Kenyan AA gets a premium. Brazilian coffee gets a price penalty because of its quality. That is all because taste and aroma matter and people from tree to cup know about it.
Coffee companies know what consumers want. Then they talk with producers to explain what consumers want. Producers make what consumers want and get a better price for their better differentiated coffees. To make that possible, international organizations that set standards for grading coffee train professional coffee tasters so that both producers and buyers can communicate and cooperate.
One complaint I've heard from sugarmakers who sell bulk is that they disagree with how buyers grade their syrup. Coffee has largely eliminated that problem. Consider the certification for “Q Arabica Grader” (professional coffee taster) and how it enables buyers and sellers to calibrate, communicate, and cooperate.
The course for becoming a Q Arabica Grader prepares participants for the 22 tests they must pass . The tests relate to an individual's ability to accurately and consistently cup (taste) and grade coffee according to the Specialty Coffee Association of America cupping and grading standards and protocols, including a thorough understanding of the SCAA cupping form. A person must pass twenty-two tests to obtain a professional license as a Q Grader. This license must be renewed every 3 years by attending a Q Grader calibration to ensure the Q Grader is up-to-date.
Even though coffee depends on human tasters, through rigor and professional communication they have largely removed subjectivity and opinion from flavor and aroma . It is not enough for individuals to be tested and licensed. Every quarter, coffee graders from buyers and sellers get together to calibrate their sensory evaluations of coffee. If there are discrepancies, they work to understand them and end up with agreement about how to grade for the coming quarter. Because of the calibration, disagreements are rare.
Coffee people know how to talk about flavor and aroma. They didn't always. Thirty years ago, most coffee was red can vs blue can, or Folgers and Maxwell House. Then came specialty coffee revolution. Producers discovered that good flavor equals money, and thus shined a light on every aspect that helps a consumer discern the quality of what they buy. A mountain grown washed Arabica coffee from the San Marcos region of Guatemala is likely to retain its identity all the way to the consumer. It does not get blended in with coffees of different grades and qualities from Brazil and Vietnam.
But that kind of blending happens in maple syrup. Barrels of syrup from all sources and all qualities get batched together. The Maple Federation sales communiqué, published on December 7, 2021,says that if you want to buy, for example, 100 barrels of Regular Lot 1 - Harvesting Years 2013 to 2021, 7 barrels will be golden, 56 amber, and 7 dark, 15 barrels will have VR1 defects, and 15 barrels will have VR4 defects.
That means that 30% of this syrup will be defective.
The good and excellent maple syrup you make then sell in bulk gets blended in with a shocking amount of defective syrup. Of the 35,378,679 pounds of maple syrup in the sales communicate, 23,344,170 pounds have flavor defects.
Something has to change. Or sugarbushes will be going the way of dairy farms.