Quote Originally Posted by markcasper View Post
Very much truth to that, but the packers made out pretty well the past 3-4 years by acquiring syrup much cheaper and not dropping their prices accordingly.
It is hard to say precisely, because packers aren't marketing the syrup directly in many cases. They sell to wholesalers and retailers, so any margin is split between those parties. What I hear from packers is that the retailers (especially the big markets like Costco and Walmart) are squeezing them to lower their prices, but the stores are not dropping the retail price. So while having big reserves (in Quebec) is probably good for ingredient markets to keep prices stable, having an oversupply that retailers can see acts to drop the wholesale price they will pay to packers.

Then again, we have the U.S. $ to Canadian $ that still factors into it as well. It's all a bit murky at those levels....and the packers are obviously reluctant to discuss it because they don't want other packers to know their prices or customers.