Maple 2.0: Quebec syrup-makers turn to automation and expansion as demand grows

ROXTON POND —

Visitors to the main building of the Côté et fils maple farm in Quebec’s Eastern Townships region will be greeted by a wall of screens with the views from dozens of security cameras, showing an array of tubes and troughs filling up with clear, foamy sap.

Through a door, inside the production area, noise-cancelling headphones are needed for the deafening hum of the gleaming machines transforming thousands of litres of maple sap into syrup each day.

Mikael Ruest acknowledges that the process is far removed from the folksy images of buckets and horse-drawn sleighs that still grace the company’s syrup cans.

“It’s a 2.0 version of a maple shack,” he said in an interview at the farm in Roxton Pond, Que. “We have a lot of cameras, optimization, monitoring around the forest to verify the leaks … and yes, it is not traditional. It’s a family thing, but it’s not traditional.”

As demand for syrup has surged in recent years, Quebec’s maple industry is evolving too, adding millions of new taps and turning to automation and better technology to satisfy a growing global sweet tooth.

Ruest, who is related to the Côté family and works for the business, says the business has made a number of investments in recent years to increase production and profit.

That has included running pipes underground, adding internet and cameras in pumping stations and buying three electric evaporators at a cost of about $250,000 each — although that cost was partly offset by subsidies that help businesses adopt greener technology. Monitors on the trees and in stations alert employees if there’s a leak, temperature change or problem with a pump.

Out in the forest, the clear sap bubbles slowly from the trees into blue and green tubing. From there, they’ll be brought to the 25 pumping stations, and then sent through underground pipes to the warehouse. The sap will be filtered before going through a reverse osmosis process that removes most of the water and concentrates the sap before boiling, saving time.

The evaporator then goes to work, transforming sap to syrup that is then filtered again before being put into containers or cans for sale.

Joël Vaudeville, a communications director with the provincial maple producers’ association, says syrup is big business in Quebec, which exports about $800 million annually.

He says international demand has risen 19 per cent in the last year, forcing the province to dip into its strategic reserve, which stockpiles syrup when production exceeds demand, and sells it where the reverse is true.

“The biggest challenge is being able to sustain demand for the products,” he said in an interview.

Last year, the association authorized seven million new taps — each tree has one to three — which are expected to produce an additional 20 million pounds of syrup for year by 2028. More than 600 new maple businesses have also been created in recent months, he said.

Émilie Blondeau is one of the province’s newer producers, having started ShackHam Maple Farm in 2024. The 28-year-old, whose sugarbush counts about 10,000 taps in the Eastern Townships region, said she entered the business for both practical and sentimental reasons.

She said the collective marketing system set in place by the maple producer’s association, which sets a floor price for syrup and can help even out demand through the reserve, creates a predictability that is rare for agricultural business.

“It’s something very important for financing to have a product that is already sold,” she said.

Blondeau, an agricultural economist by trade, said she was also attracted by the heritage aspect of maple production, and its tradition of family-run businesses. Her mother is a co-owner, and her three- and one-year-old children, “live in the woods with us,” she said. “It’s extremely unifying,” she said.

While Blondeau has chosen to buy all the equipment needed to produce syrup from start to finish, others can choose to lease out their land and taps or sell their syrup to other, larger producers, like Côté et fils.

Ruest said the business had about 42,000 taps when it was bought in 2007 by Michel Côté. Now, as the owner prepares to pass it down to his children, and maybe eventually grandchildren, it operates about 150,000.

Of those, 85,000 are owned by the business, while the rest comes from leased land or purchased sap. Ruest says the company also serves as a boiling centre for new producers who want to make their own syrup but don’t have all the equipment.

“We’re in an era where there are a lot of new producers who want to invest at the level of the woods to install a collection system, but who don’t necessarily want to invest in a full sugar shack with all the equipment,” he said.

Vaudeville says this is a relatively new practice, and one that allows new producers to start earning while saving for their own full setup. “It’s a model that didn’t exist 10, 15 years ago,” he said.

Vaudeville said that adding taps and producers isn’t guaranteed to ensure a steady supply of syrup, which requires not only the right trees but the right weather — with warmer days followed by freezing nights.

Climate change creates more uncertainty for producers, who have to contend with earlier start times to syrup season and less predictability from one year to the next. But it could also potentially increase that market share, as parts of the United States that used to produce syrup become too warm, he said.

He said Quebec produces some 72 per cent of the world’s syrup, which ensures a dominant market share. While syrup is an export-dependent product, with 85 per cent destined for foreign markets, and 63 per cent of that heading south of the border, Vaudeville said that, so far, the industry hasn’t been affected by U.S. tariffs.

He said it’s too soon to know if the 2026 season will be a good one, although the weather appears promising so far. “Only one person knows, and that’s Mother Nature,” he said.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published March 15, 2026.

Morgan Lowrie, The Canadian Press