Birch Tree Syrup Competes With Maple

Birch Tree Syrup Competes With Maple 29-5-8 Birch tree syrup is a hot commodity that's attracting a lot of interest, and Joe Glaves of Cumberland House, Sask., is working hard to promote the relatively unknown product. As a member of a newly-formed "natural syrups" cooperative, Glaves started collecting sap from birch trees in 1998. He now does a brisk domestic and international business through mail order sales and also retail at his restaurant and grocery store. Besides birch syrup and sauce, he also produces box elder syrup and "birch/elder garlic" sauce. He can sell all the birch syrup he can produce, which is between 50 and 75 gallons per year. It retails for $5 per 2-oz. bottle and wholesales for about $38 per quart to other restaurant chefs. "It's well-known in Eastern Europe and Asia as an energizer, and Canadian aboriginals used it in the spring for the same reason," Glaves explains. "Alaska already has a well-developed birch syrup industry." He has invested $100,000 in reverse osmosis and evaporator equipment which he uses to remove 70 percent of the water from the sap while cooking it. The processing takes place in vats located in a small shed and can be done at a rate of about 90 gallons per hour. For every 24 gal. of birch sap, Glaves can make one quart of syrup. This compares to the maple syrup ratio of 10 to one. He and five full-time employees collect the sap when it is running during a three week period starting in mid-April, and it is a round-the-clock, 7-day a week job during this time. They drill 7/16-in. holes (1.25-in. deep) into about 2,200 trees (minimum tree dia. is 8 in.), and insert a plastic tap in each hole from which plastic buckets are hung. An employee on an ATV pulling a large tank collects the sap for transport back to the processing shack. Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Joe Glaves, Box 2913, Nipawin, Sask., Canada S0E 1E0 (cjglaves@sasktel.net).

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