selling maple products

[milligkl]

Hello,

I'm new to the maple product industry and trying to do as much research as possible before I dip my toe in the water and start producing syrup and other maple products (going to do about 15% of my lands capacity in the first year and gradually increase). I feel I have a pretty good idea about the operational side to running a sugar house, but had a few questions regarding selling the product. I wanted to get an idea from several producers on how they sell their product, where they sell it, and how they market the product.

1. How much in terms of revenue should one expect from selling at a farmers market? I know it will vary based on the state but I'm a little wary that people don't go to a farmers market for syrup, maple sugar, or maple candy they're typically going for fruits and vegetables.

2. What sort of breakdown do you have in terms of channels for selling your maple products (ie 50% farmers markets, 25% grocery stores, 25% restaurants)?

3. How do you go about making the first initial contact in selling your product? Do you call the grocery store, restaurant etc and try to set up an appointment?

4. What sort of marketing activities do you do for your product? I know social media is an easy way to market your product but I was curious about other ways that maple producers market their products.

5. What sort of price discounts do you offer groceries, restaurants, and general stores for your products with buying in bulk?

6. What quantities do you typically sell your syrup in to groceries and restaurants (ie by the quart) and how much syrup do your average customer purchase per year?

7. Has the way that you market or sell your products changed as your operation has grown?

Answers to any of my questions would be greatly appreciated.


Best Regards,
Kevin

[maple flats]

Kevin, welcome to the Maple Trader. I can address some of these questions. I started producing in 2003 and only made 10.5 gal that year. We used about 1.5 gal for family use and I sold out the little remaining by selling it at work (I also drive school bus). As my operation grew I continued selling at work until I was over about 75 gal production. In this time I had built up a decent customer base of sales directly out of the sugarhouse. I participated in our state organization's Maple Weekend for 3 years. The first was ok, but somewhat slower than I had hoped. Just before the second one, I got some free advertising. First I was interviewed along with several others by the local major paper out of Syracuse. Then that reported asked if they could do a feature article on my operation. That article appeared the next week with a few pictures. The size covered about 1 page in the paper. The following Sunday I was the feature story in their Sunday magazine section, the cover story and I had 3 total pages of pics and article. That next Sat.-Sun. was our maple weekend, state wide promotion. As a result of the articles I had a huge turnout. I can only fit about 25 people in my sugarhouse at one time. That was full all day, and from 10-4 all day I had lines of 30-50 people waiting their turn to get in. I sold out completely from my starting fully stocked shelves. When that happened, I had a canner full of medium amber. From there We filled jugs as people requested a certain size jug or bottle. We emptied the canner shortly before the 4:00 closing and had taken several orders for future pick-up. We processed all the sap we had, filtered the syrup, density checked and bottled late into the evening. Sunday brought almost as many guests and again we sold out. During that week we made enough syrup to barely meet demand for the second weekend of Maple weekend. The power of the media had well proven itself. Free advertising works wonders.
The next year we again participated in maple weekend but with no free advertising we only had a nice, constant traffic flow. We ran low on product but did not sell out. One year following for Maple Weekend the weather was about 80 degrees and thus folks did not come, I think they went to the beach. We had no sap and had to boil water, (which smelled good as it cleaned the pans) but we only had 2 guests on Saturday and 1 on Sunday. Since then we have not participated in that event.
In the meantime, during the season we put out an Open House sign on weekends when the conditions are right. We also developed a website and my sales last year were roughly as follows, 5% at work, 30% at the sugarhouse, 15% to resellers of my product, 20% on the website, 20 was sold bulk (commercial and some grade B) and I had 10% carry over.
With the lower production I had this year I'll likely sell out and need to buy bulk to meet my demand.
2 yrs ago, we did 1 local farmers market, selling syrup and molded sugar, along with fresh fruits (blueberries, raspberries, peaches, plums, and elderberries, and a variety of veggies, all our own. Since then we have not done the farmer's market, but our syrup is there at 3 of them because a large greenhouse operation buys my syrup at 15% off my retail and sells it along with his produce.