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Vermont Maple Syrup Farmers Sell Collectively
With 10,000+ taps typical for many Vermont maple syrup producers, it’s become difficult for small producers with 1,000 taps or less to compete or to even find a buyer for their syrup. That’s where the Maple Farmers collective comes in. It markets the syrup made by six families as a sideline business.
Cory Krieg, an electrical engineer who taps about 300 trees, manages the website and shipping and says demand is strong for the small producers’ syrup.
All of them cook the sap down traditionally with wood fires and the syrup is bottled in glass bottles. Large, commercial operations use a reverse osmosis process to speed up the cooking process.
“I set it up so small maple syrup producers can get double the price of selling it in bulk,” Krieg says.
Krieg provides the glass bottles and labels for each farm, so customers know exactly where the syrup comes from.
After starting the business in 2021, Krieg made some changes for 2022, including $10 flat rate shipping ($5 shipping for orders of two quarts). He also added half-pint bottles.
“We introduced half-pints before Christmas for gifts,” he says, including collections of three and four half-pints of golden to very dark syrups.
“Everyone sold as much as they wanted in 2021,” Krieg says, and customers throughout the country have shown interest in buying syrup from small family operations, paying $10.95/half-pint and $25.95/quart. Everything is U.S.-made including the glass bottles and metal lids and labels that Krieg purchased.
Krieg welcomes other small maple syrup producers in Vermont to contact him about joining Maple Farmers.
Contact: FARM SHOW Followup, Maple Farmers, 3340 Christian Hill Rd., Bethel, Vt. 05032 (ph 802-280-5056; cory@maplefarmers.com; www.maplefarmers.com).


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2022 - Volume #46, Issue #3