Magazine Cover- Unbelievable!!!

[Bucket Head]

Has anyone seen the cover photo of the current Vermont Magazine?

It shows a member of the Howrigan family dumping a bucket of sap into a gathering tank. Do you know what he's using for a gathering pail?

A plastic Valvoline motor oil pail! Simply unbelievable!

You can bet a health inspector, food inspector, FDA employee., etc. has seen this photograph and is already thinking the worst.

I've been saying for a long time that is only a matter of time before we are all forced to have food grade everthing and be inspected with a magnifying glass. This photograph put's us all closer to having that be a reality.

The Howrigans might of just done a great diservice to the maple industry.

We don't need bad publicity, but we have a little bit now.

Steve

[maple flats]

I agree, why would any producer not know this could easily trigger disaster?

[markct]

yea that is a shame, as much as i hate to put down another operation that realy is a bad thing to do, especialy in such a highly visable place. oil is the absolute worst thing, maybe not realy, but as for the public view it is, i know alot of guys around here use joint compound pails, i sure wouldnt, and they are not food grade, but they are white and appear cleaner than having an oil label on the side. oh well, like i said i hate to rag on anyones operation but we realy need to watch this stuff as a public image thing it can turn alot of folks away from syrup when they see that

[DaveB]

For anyone interested, I found a page (http://www.vermontmagazine.com/magazine.html) on their site that has a tiny picture of the cover.

I can't believe someone could be so stupid to use something like that. VT is pretty strict with standards and they are going to get something for that!

Dave

p.s. I'll try attaching the image to this message.

[Big maple]

How else would you keep your foam problems under control? What do you guys use?

[markct]

wow that realy is a shame! a picture perfect, all natural,organic,pure etc scene with the horses and all, but just that darn oil pail. ever since i started sugaring just as a hobby for my own syrup and to give to some friends, i was very carefull about food grade, believe me it killed me when my gathering pail got broken and i had to use a brand new 5 gal pail from the hardware store, it was new, and just for gathering, so there was little worry but it wasnt a food grade or potable water pail im sure, and it just made me feel guilty

[Big maple]

Has anyone ever collected with horses? Sorry to get off point, but where do you guys think the horses get something to drink when they are thirsty? and what about leaching dioxins from the break down of all the plastic tubing and buckets out there. I think you may be getting a little too excited over a bucket.

[KenWP]

What do you guys call food grade anyways. I have pails that had pie fill and pudding in them and they are the same plastic pails that I get disenfectant and soap for the hog barns in. We once were on a Hutterite colony and they were actually useing a Vitavax pail for chicken parts and the other inspecter seen it and threw the hole pail of chicken in the bone barrel. Man were they ticked off.

[Bucket Head]

We are not getting "excited" over the bucket itself. What we are very concerned with is the image that used motor oil pail is portraying about our syrup making to everyone.

Your right, the pail is'nt causing too much contamination any more. The hundreds and hundreds of gallons of sap that has traveled through it has washed all the oil away by now.

Its the thought of "trace amounts of 10W-40 in every bottle of syrup". Is that what you want going through your customers heads?

Why don't you put some motor oil pails in your sugarhouse, and when someone asks why they are there, say "I sometimes keep sap or syrup in them".

See what that does for business.

Steve

[OGDENS SUGAR BUSH]

BUCKETHEAD very well put

RICH

[benchmark]

Wow!! I cant believe that is on the front cover of Vt. magazine, crazy. Out of anything they could have used for the picture, and they get a shot of sap being poured out of an oil bucket on the front cover
That is very bad publicity.
Maybe they were just advertising for Valvoline products :confused:

[hard maple]

maybe every time I change the oil in my truck I should save those quart containers...


5w-30=light amber
10w-40=medium
20-50=dark stuff

save money on labels too!!!

[nhmaple48]

Vermont makes it special!!!

[howden86]

This does not surprise me. I get 2 septic haulers in the county that keep joking that they haul me sap in the septic trucks to make good flavor and I keep telling them it is not a joke because I have lost business from their ........ jokes. But this is very very bad for the industry. Makes us look like a bunch of idiots.

[maplecrest]

there was a lady in my sugar house a year ago that said to me that a picture taken on a cell phone can be seen around the world in minutes. it has to be clean and look good at all times. and this is one of those times that is not looking to good.

[DS Maple]

Funny thing, just yesterday I went to grab a five gallon bucket for collecting and the first clean one I found was a Amalie oil bucket. I picked it up and said to myself, "I just can't do this." I settled for a bucket that originally contained an all purpose cleaner and this made me feel a little better given so many of us use a small amount of bleach when flushing lines. In the meantime, I'm still going to get some more honey buckets, that way if anyone asks I have a straight answer that sounds pretty safe.

Relating to that picture, I am still shocked that a magazine trying to promote Vermont would put something like that on the cover. I'm willing to bet whoever overlooked it will be getting some criticism.

[KenWP]

It's common practise to haul garbage from the states into Canada and grain back to the states in the truck return. They just wash it out real quick.

[Bucket Head]

Maybe Vermont magazine could get a photo of a grain truck and put it on the cover for the next issue?

I'm sure the photo editor had no idea that was an oil pail. A simple and forgiveable oversight on their part. However, the fact that a sugar maker is using equipment like that is not forgiveable.

I commend everyone here who thought better of using a questionable pail for sap or syrup.

There is no reason why a clean and unused pail can not be used for gathering. Wal-Mart and Lowe's sell new, HDPE plastic pails and lids. I'm sure other store's do too. They are not that expensive.

When we first got into syrupmaking we went around to local bakery's and bought their used pails from them for between .25 and .50 cents a piece. They had the lids too. The pails originally had fruit fillings or frostings in them. We washed them out and we were good to go. No harmfull odors or off flavors, and nothing toxic.

A few years ago I bought a bunch of either six or six and a half gallon buckets right from the manufacturer for gathering. They were'nt the cheapest things out there, but I did that for a reason.

I wanted a little extra "carrying capacity". But more importantly, I wanted new and unused pails so cleanliness was guaranteed.

No worries, and no fallout from someone seeing a questionable pail being used in food production.

Steve

[3rdgen.maple]

I find it rather amazing how much money is spent on new maple equipment every year but when it comes to our gathering pails that some grab what is readily available. For 2.75 to 3.00 bucks and a stop at HD or lowes you can get a new 5 gallon pail with no markings on it. You don't have to answer any questions about the pail in the picture or the one sitting in the saphouse.

[220 maple]

I have been told by my customers that my syrup tastes better than syrup made up north, I don't know or care I know it has a higher viscosity, I perfer used grease buckets myself. Just kidding don't have buckets yet, I'm just a backward West Virginia hillbilly with one leg shorter than the other! The one thing I do know is that we need to shut up about it and hope that some tree hugging wacko doesn't start beating their chest over that picture, we all have faults we don't need them pointing our faults out to us or others. MY 2 CENTS WORTH

Mark 220 Maple

[Bucket Head]

Exactly 3rdGEN. A plain pail will not raise eyebrows.

All of my plastic pails are white. I don't know if the colorant in a colored pail is allright or not.

Get plain white pails if your going to purchase them. Why? Because people associate white with the word "sterile". Think of a hospital, or types of cooking equipment. The plastic cutting boards are white.

A syrup maker is qouted in the current Maple News. He was asked what the secret was to his sucess. He said "cleanliness". People like to see clean.

Steve

[Clan Delaney]

Seeing that cover made me wince. I've got nothing against using what's available to you, or re-using a container... but if you wouldn't put a spoonful of the original contents of a container in your mouth and swallow it, you shouldn't be putting sap in it. Unless we're talking post apocalyptic conditions (under which I'd make maple syrup in an engine block if that's what it took :D) then there's always a cheap and available source for new, clean containers.

This touches closely on something I was asked about maple syrup just today, since we're already discussing issues of cleanliness and contamination. A guy I work with asked, "What's to stop animals from just drinking out of your sap buckets?" What he was driving at was: won't that contaminate it? I'll bet that nobody here who runs tubing has never had it chewed on (and not by their kids). But I've never heard about it being practice to dump sap and sterilize lines after such an event. My answer was, well, that sap is heated to 7 degrees above boiling to make syrup, and that kills and bacteria or pathogens that might be in it. Am I right? I'm well aware that chemical contamination is different from biological contamination, but to a customer unclean is unclean. Has anyone else ever fielded questions like this? How do you respond?

[3rdgen.maple]

Clan yes and I respond with DO YOU WANNA BUY SOME SYRUP? Just kidding.
Pretty much the same response you gave but just added the point that we prefilter the sap before we boil and filter again after drawoff. Seems to ease their confusion of how sanitary the process is.

[mapleack]

Up until about 15 or 16 years ago we gathered in old joint compound buckets or used dairy teat dip buckets. Food grade? No. Bad? Probably not. Since then we've used nothing but food grade plastic buckets for anything sap or syrup touched. I can't tell what kind of bucket is being used from the tiny thumbnail picture, but if it truly is a valvoline oil bucket, I feel little sympathy for any criticism, department of ag headaches or loss of business the producer featured suffers. A motor oil bucket being used for sap collection should be so far fetched that no syrup maker outside of a looney bin shoud even think about it. The potential impact from such a stupid act could be immeasureable. Just plain stupid!

[johnallin]

As it's already been said... Why not just use pails from a local donut shop, I do.

They have more than they can handle and at 35 cents or less each, and we're talking less than forty bucks for over a hundred buckets!

Hell, you probably spend more than that for fancy labels proclaiming your 100% PURE maple syrup. I'm not convinced you can boil out the residual oil out of anything - let alone plastic. Take a look sometime at how you are supposed to dispose used oil and oil containers - can you say Haz Mat?

[Maple Restoration]

We get all our pail from a local micro brewery every year, their wine concentrate come in 7 gallon food grade white pails in liners, they are happy just to get rid of them for free.

It is to bad to see an ad like that be published this day and age, I for one know first hand as a print media sale rep./photographer, this photo was proof many time by the photographer, the publisher rep and associates of the magazine, yet no one cough this in the photo.

[KenWP]

I have given up trying to find pails. I have to find somebody who speaks French enough to figure out what a pail is called. I asked for pails at the bakery yesterday and she handed me a plastic bag. Guys got to use what ever he can find I guess.

[Homestead Maple]

How else would you keep your foam problems under control? What do you guys use?
LOL, Atmos.

If anyone knows the Howrigans well, they should alert them and help them out. They're a fine family and don't need the bad publicity.

[Jerome]

Ken
I just emailed my daughter for you. That is what she'll be majoring in next year.