Newbie. Seriously, newbie!

[Mini_Maple_Men]

In Maine, as long as all you are doing is making syrup you don't need fda stuff. As soon as you start to refine it into sugar, candy, taffy, etc then fad and commercial kitchen comes into play.

[Cedar Eater]

In Maine, as long as all you are doing is making syrup you don't need fda stuff. As soon as you start to refine it into sugar, candy, taffy, etc then fad and commercial kitchen comes into play.

So you could boil outdoors, finish in your kitchen, and sell it? And people aren't all dying from eating the syrup? We have too much government in Michigan.

[Cedar Eater]

I am assuming that the original poster is planning a sugar house.

If he is thinking of tapping 20 acres that is probably in the neighborhood of 1k taps so I am assuming he is investing in a sugar house and equipment to handle that sort of a workload. If you are committed to building or converting an existing facility to work in.... making it fda compliant is pretty simple in my opinion. I would think the cost of the equipment to process a 1k taps or more would be far more than the building itself. The place I toured this yr used it's permeate from the reverse osmosis for the water supply and he produced far more water than he could ever use on a cleanup. For hot water he collected the steam from his steamaway into a small tank.

Looking at the costs of an arch,pan, pre heater, hood, reverse osmosis, filter press,water canner, storage tanks, vac pump, tubing etc.... I would guess would be double the price of a sugar shack large enough to fit the equipment and have room for storage.

You would have to do the business plan and weigh out the investment and see how many trees you need to tap to make it happen. There are people out there doing it successfully......some even get grants for starting new business in an area.

I was assuming that he wanted to avoid bankruptcy. One way to do that is to not buy everything you will eventually need before you need it for the next phase of expansion. Not having to go into debt and pay interest is one way to reduce the risk and the stress of turning a hobby into a business. Having a phased approach can be key to reducing risk, reducing stress, and reducing debt. But jumping right into making and selling syrup in Michigan means that you have to start with an FDA compliant sugar house. So right out of the gate, before you've even bought an evaporator that is adequate for Phase 1, you have to size and equip a building for the evaporator and equipment that you will eventually need when you finish ramping up to full production over 5-10 years. That can be a show stopper if your risk tolerance is low. There is no opportunity to sell syrup for a few years to build enough reserve to fund a sugar house. So I advised selling sap as a way to do that. It develops the sugarbush with a lower infrastructure investment.

[IndianCreek]

In Maine, as long as all you are doing is making syrup you don't need fda stuff. As soon as you start to refine it into sugar, candy, taffy, etc then fad and commercial kitchen comes into play.

In michigan it is the opposite. You can make candy all day long in your kitchen with no issue.....as long as your yearly sales are under 20k.

For syrup it is a real grey area. You can make syrup without any licensing if your sales are under 15k. The issue we have is our cottage industry law states produced in a home kitchen....the fda says that syrup and honey cannot be made in a "home" kitchen because of the nature of the process. So our state law changed to say you must follow our basic state food law principles in your unlicensed business. Our food law says fda kitchen. So your kitchen doesn't have to be licensed or approved.....but you are supposed to use a facility that meets code.

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[Overmyhead]

Well thank you for all the replies! I know I'm not set up to tap close to 1k trees, I would devise a plan to integrate that many over the course of a few years. As for a sugar house, I've been looking at many designs and may plan to visit several different sites to get a feel for how to set one up. I've also looked into getting licensed. Here in Maine that's not really a hard thing to do thankfully! I'm just not sure how to break into the market. This may make me sound very naïve, but will I have a hard time selling my maple syrup?

[IndianCreek]

Well thank you for all the replies! I know I'm not set up to tap close to 1k trees, I would devise a plan to integrate that many over the course of a few years. As for a sugar house, I've been looking at many designs and may plan to visit several different sites to get a feel for how to set one up. I've also looked into getting licensed. Here in Maine that's not really a hard thing to do thankfully! I'm just not sure how to break into the market. This may make me sound very naïve, but will I have a hard time selling my maple syrup?

I am a newbie myself but many have pointed me towards our state maple syrup producers association. I would have to believe you have one. Check out their website and look for when they have offseason conferences. Should be plenty of people and companies there to point you in the right direction and answer your questions. Maybe even try emailing some of the members.



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[Mini_Maple_Men]

It is the Maine maple producers association. They are having a 3 day event in Portland in June. I became a member this year and it has been money well spent. Lee