How to start a small maple business?

[Cote_in_Colchester]

Hi all! I am at that "glass ceiling" where I want to go from 200 taps on buckets and a barrel evaporator, to 500 taps, a 2x6 evaporator, sugar house, bottler, filter press, nice RO, etc.All the good stuff! Roughly $40k if I add it all together.

I'm at the junction of stay small/go bigger/or stop all together!

But how do I go bigger without mortgaging the house?

I am only 37, three kids and a mortgage. Oh and I'm on a small residential lot (2 acres) but in the woods (sounds counterintuitive I know). I'd rather not take on debt for something that's supposed to be a fun hobby.

Talking to some local folks, they offered a rough game plan:
1. Register as a Delaware LLC (with a registered agent looks between $100-200)
2. Sell $2500 worth of syrup and firewood (I need a receipt machine??? )
3. Rezone my property from residential to a class F (need to research with my town more)
4. Start looking into grants and programs to get money
5. Other less fun stuff about insurance and businessy items (this is a hobby right?)

Does anyone have a game plan on how they did it? (notes with how not to do it appreciated!)

I realize this jump isn't $40k at once, and if I put a few grand into it a year, the glass ceiling isn't an immediate shatter, but more of a slow fracture.

I am sure this has all been posted before, but I'd rather write and wait than search through the archives for hours!

Thank you!!!

[Sugarmaker]

Cote,
I think you have done a good job think about this and some may argure that your numbers are way too high but I dont think so. I think you have a plan and the correct approximate costs. Ways to save? Well do what ever you can to buy and or make good sound quality equipment. Used evaporator, used pans ...... The new stuff will eat you up. Building the sugarhouse, not a cheap date.
Your sugarbush can be many other trees in the neighborhood. Dont limit the size of your sugar bush to your property. You just have to carve out the time to move the sap.
Payback? I would say as you develop your customers and or outlets it may be a little discouraging for a couple years? I would estimate pay back in 6-7 years if you really work at the marketing side as much as the production side!
Set realistic goals for number of taps. syrup produced, sales wholesale and or retail. Time needed to get the business up and going. Time needed to get the prep work done for the season and the clean up at the end.
Rambling here probably havent helped?
Our 21'st year as a hobby maple and Honey business, does it get easier? Yes but we have great customers that now want additional products, and We really dont want to get any larger!
I would recommend a 3 x 8 evaporator. You wont have to buy a bigger one with adjustments in your R.O. if needed. You could go to 2000 taps. They will boil about 80 GPH this will help a lot with your boiling time on 8% sap. 10 gallon of syrup per hour!
Good luck!
Regards,
Chris

[Cote_in_Colchester]

Thank you for the feedback @sugarmaker. I had to take some time to digest your response! I think it sparked a "what is my ultimate goal?" discussion with myself and spouse.

As a side note, I already sell surplus split firewood on my property. I don't need to scale up the maple operation immediately to make the necessary income to apply for a farm classification/zoning purposes. If that amount is $2,500 (which I have heard others reference), I could easily do that in firewood sales!

When all is said and done, I don't actually want to start a maple business per se. I don't want to produce hundreds of gallons to sell. I'd like to make 20-25 gallons of syrup a year in a nice sugar house and have the equipment to do it in a reasonable amount of time and effort. And I'd like to get to that point as quickly and financially painlessly as possible!

So with that in mind, I have some new questions:
1. How do I go about rezoning my property from residential to farm for tax purposes? I live in CT and the taxes here are already very high, so I'll take any help I can get!
2. Should I give up the dream of grant money since I won't be selling maple syrup on a large farm scale?

[DRoseum]

Your goals are similar to mine. I would like to rezone to "clean and green" classification in PA if possible and need to sell over 2k per year to achieve and maintain that status.

I started a small maple business last year and produce around 30 to 35 gallons per year. I have a mix of sales direct to consumers who find me online, through a very nice set of small retail shops in the city, and at a local Christmas tree farm. I sold all my syrup (except a few gallons we kept for ourselves) and was very happy with the avg price per oz/gal I got for the year. And after its all said and done....still in the red for year 1 😁


There is a lot that goes into running this "business" that really doesn't generate profits anytime soon at our scale. Probably takes 6 or 7 years as Chris said.

You need to follow local and state regulations. In PA this involves annual fees and inspections by the dept of Agr to be a limited food establishment and be compliant with the PA law for selling ANY syrup. You have to register with FDA if you sell outside your state or do more than 50% of sales in wholesale to a retailer or bulk. You need an EIN for tax purposes. You should get and LLC to limit your liability. You will need a website. You will need to figure out how to take payments (cash, paypal, credit cards). You will need e-commerce capabilities. You will need separate finances / bank accounts or the LLC loses its benefit of protecting your personal assets. You will need meticulous accounting/book-keeping so you can file taxes...local, state, and federal..and show income and expenses (on 1040 schedule F if you are a single member LLC). You will need to do marketing (word of mouth, online, local ads / sponsorships) like crazy to drive sales. Spend evenings / weekends at farmers markets etc in the "off" season.

You will have to keep good records of your production and spot on quality control. Keep sample bottles for each finished batch with date codes on them.

And do all this AFTER you've spent the day working a day job, being a parent and spouse. 😁

Once its a business.... its a business, not just a hobby.

I fully encourage you and others to do it.... just go into it eyes wide open. Everyone on this forum is here to help you achieve your dreams/goals, but maple is probably one of the hardest and lowest profit endeavors. We are all just crazy and in love with the process or else we wouldn't do it! 🤣

[bill m]

Not sure how zoning works in Connecticut but in Massachusetts zoning is set by the town and you do not get to change it. Check with your assessors office to see how your property is zoned. As for Grant money you need to show you are a farm business and generate a percentage of your income from the farm.

[Sugar Bear]

I am only 37, three kids and a mortgage. Oh and I'm on a small residential lot (2 acres) but in the woods (sounds counterintuitive I know). I'd rather not take on debt for something that's supposed to be a fun hobby.

I went to 75 taps this year and it is my 6th year into it. About 30 of my taps are on my 1 acre of land and the others are on a neighbors and in another state. So I am still nothing with regards to size and expenditures. But at times I contemplate getting to 400 or 500 taps and with all the investment needed I would never do it unless I knew for certain those taps were either on my land and/or always going to be available to me. Then I would worry less about the investment.

So step one for me would be making certain the taps my equipment would need to rely would always be there. Especially if I were a young 37 rather then a surrendering to time 57.

Our world is so fleeting these days. And what is available today may not be available tomorrow, let alone next season. Especially down range in maple range.

[ecp]

If you are looking to start a business in the maple industry and make make a little money I have a perfect equation for you. To make a little money start with a lot of money and quit early lol.

[Sugar Bear]

If you are looking to start a business in the maple industry and make make a little money I have a perfect equation for you. To make a little money start with a lot of money and quit early lol.

I know a guy in the town xyz in Connecticut that has 400 taps and because of it and 8 chickens that guard the taps, he goes from owing $12,000 ( 12 thousand ) a year on his property to something like $8 ( 8 dollars ) a year.

So the proof is not always in the pudding itself.

The residents get the benefit of not having his 6 acres of land subdivided and the extraordinary luxury of staring at his extensive milage of tubing running through his woods for much of the year. I spose he shows the neighbors kids how to sugar ... but my 3rd grade teacher did that for free, during school class hours way back in 1972, back in the days where school was fun and school shootouts were not just not heard about, but did not happen. HMMMM!

I am in favor of tax breaks, you just got to show something for it first and keep it at a relative level of sanity.

If you can't, its about as ethical as tapping your trees 4 different times during the same season.

Then there are the real sugar farmers, which I do nothing but tip my cap to. They do make money, its just the old fashioned way.

[jrgagne99]

Sugarhouse efficiency is good. Take a look at my signature for my setup. You can make a lot of syrup on a small rig. My equipment cost less than $5k. Look for used and/or make yourself. I made 45 gallons this year on 150 Reds and less than 1 cord of small-split wood. My boils are 4 hours end-to-end, including bottling and cleanup. Full time job, married, 2 kids, and I usually don't start boiling until after 8 pm. But man do I make some syrup. Look for smart ways to be more efficient. For example, I run my RO directly to the boiler because the flow rates align. Full truckload of sap fills my canning unit with syrup. Things line up nicely.

All that said, you really make your money in the woods. Tight tubing and high vac (>26 inches) is a game changer. Don't skimp on a releaser. I had a homemade one for many years that didn't work great and that cost me a lot of syrup I'm sure.

[DrTimPerkins]

4. Start looking into grants and programs to get money

We get calls about this several times each year ranging from:

1. looking for energy efficiency conversion grants (which do exist in some places at various times), or
2. how can I get the government to buy me some land, an evaporator and all the other equipment, or
3. tell me "how do I get some of that free government money?"

Sometimes they suggest that they'll teach kids the process so should get a grant.

Occasionally they are under the impression that we should write the grant proposal (for a non-existent program) for them.

In some places there were grants at one time to help producers replace lead-containing equipment for new lead-free equipment, but those were very targeted programs.

My general answer is, if you find some of that free and easy government money then let me know how so I can do it. For the most part, it's like searching for a unicorn or bigfoot. You better enjoy the search because that's pretty much all you'll get out of it.