KAMSACK, Sask. Ñ Allen Bennett has spent the last nine years building a maple syrup processing business on his family’s farm near Kamsack.
Starting with 77 home-made taps the first year, Bennett expects to have around 25,000 taps drawing sap from Manitoba maple trees this spring.
Less than 20 percent of those taps will be his own, however. The rest will be operated by about 25 partners who will bring raw sap to his processing facility during this year’s sap run.
“That’s all on contract,” said Bennett, who calls his business Assinboine River Taps.
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“They bring the sap to me; I process it. They get half the syrup and I get half the syrup.”
Bennett uses plastic taps that drain sap into four-litre plastic milk jugs tied to the trees. The sap is collected and taken to his processing facility for evaporating.
“If the weather permits, sap is collected every day,” he said.
“Sometimes you get too warm a weather for too long and the trees shut down, so you get a day off from collecting. Then you get a little frost at night and it starts up again. But most of the time it’s daily.”
Most collectors transfer the sap by pail to a large container and then pump it into trucks. Strainers filter out large material such as twigs and leaves.
The sap is then delivered to Bennett’s yard, where he grades it and makes sure it passes his standards. With more than 23,000 litres of storage capacity, he generally has a good cushion of product on hand.
“I’ve had a couple of times where I ran out of room and the guys had to hold a tank overnight, then bring it the next morning,” he said.
His two evaporators can process 450 litres of raw sap per hour.
“It might produce a little more than 2.5 gallons (11 litres) of product coming off the evaporator, but by the time it’s through the other system, finished and filtered, it’s about 2.5 gallons (11 litres).”
Because Bennett’s business is classified as a farm operation, he’s able to burn dyed diesel in the evaporators’ fireboxes. He uses about 1,100 litres of fuel every six to seven days.
“I have to take my product to about 66 brix (a measure of sugar content),” he said.
“It goes to about 65 in the evaporator, then I take it in the processing room to finishing pans over propane, where we can control the heat. We finish it off there, filter it three different times, then it goes to the bottler.”
While he would prefer a filter press, he now uses Orlon filters to remove the niter, a natural mineral that makes the syrup cloudy and bitter.
“We put it through the filters hot, then into the bottler. Once it goes in the bottler, we have to take it up past 180 F (80 C), then bottle it. That heat pasteurizes everything.”
Bennett compares it to canning. If the product isn’t canned to a certain temperature, it has a reduced shelf life and can easily spoil.
“It’s hot when you’re handling it. That helps it seal the lids. We’ve got two types of seals: a permaseal that seals the lid, plus a tamper-proof cap. You can crack the tamper-proof cap and there’s another seal there.”
The jugs are laid sideways after bottling to ensure the top seals and to get a complete pasteurization of the whole jug.
Labelling must wait until the jugs become cold because the labels go on better that way.
“It’s amazing how much that bottle shrinks from hot to cold. If you put it on really hot, the label will wrinkle a lot.”
Shelf life is not an issue once the syrup is bottled and sealed. Bennett said he has opened a bottle after saving it for six years and it was fine.
“If you’ve got an overproduction one year, you can sell it the next. It seems like our demand is getting bigger. If you asked me for a bottle of syrup right now (in mid-March), I don’t think I could find any more from anyone in the area. We’re having a tough time trying to keep up.”
Bennett markets his syrup in 100 millilitre, 250 mL, 500 mL and one litre containers. Some of his partners market their share of the syrup, but Bennett will do it as well.
“The more they do, the more money they make. If a farmer wants to take the time to deliver product or sell it, that’s up to him. But they make more money. It’s like any kind of farming: the less you do, the less you make.”
Bennett would eventually like to buy the sap as soon as it comes in the yard and then do all the marketing himself, but at the moment it would require too much up-front cash.
Virtually all his production is sold in Saskatchewan.
“We’re selling to places we never ever thought we’d sell to. There’s lots of gift shops, bakeries, restaurants. I’ve got guys making sausage that use our product.”
Within two or three years, Bennett plans to have a new building, with larger evaporators and a reverse osmosis system to draw off three-quarters of the water in the sap before processing.
“On the reverse osmosis system, we keep the byproduct and what we dump is pure water. I’d like to see if I can bottle that and sell it. If I took in 40,000 gallons (182,000 litres) of sap, I’ll be removing 30,000 gallons (136,000 litres) of water.
“You take three-quarters of the water out, but double the cooking time, so it works out to a fuel savings of about half, compared to processing straight sap. It will cut my fuel costs in half, plus get rid of water I don’t need.”
Bennett said when that happens, he’ll have to turn down his cookers because he’ll be starting with a higher concentrate.
He said tapping trees can be a good fit for many farmers in areas with access to Manitoba maple trees.
“Anybody that’s going to tap the trees, they’re only spending two or three hours collecting the product to bring it to me. If they have cattle, they can take care of them,” he said.
“If they’re a grain farmer, they haven’t started getting ready for the season. When we’re done our season, their season starts. If they want to put a couple of dollars in their pockets in the meantime, and have a little fun at it, why not?”
Bennett said a tap should produce 250 mL of finished syrup in an average season.
“I’ve had some guys take home as high as $3 a tap, while others might make a dollar a tap. If they’re drilling into the tree in the wrong spot, half their taps may be out of production. It’s a learning process how to do things, then taking the time to do it. The tapping is very important.”
He said it takes time but not a lot of money to tap trees. On the other hand, setting up the evaporator and bottling area is expensive.
“I wish all I could do is tap trees. I’d probably make more money than having all the expense of putting the dollars up front.”
However, in the coming years Bennett’s plans include selling water from the reverse osmosis system and making various fruit-flavoured syrups such as saskatoon, chokecherry, cranberry and raspberry.
“Instead of using any sugar or additives, we use maple syrup as the sweetener. We’re looking also at starting a winery, as well,” he said.
“I make way more off the syrup in six weeks than I make working with the cattle all year long. My son doesn’t want anything to do with the farm, other than the maple syrup. He sees a future in it.”
