Maple Farmers’ Collective sells only single-source syrup
Steam billowed from the open windows of the cupola of maple sugarmaker Cory Krieg’s sugarhouse on March 27, within sight of his home on Christian Hill Road in Bethel, VT.
Krieg, founder of the 12-member Vermont Maple Farmers’ Collective, welcomed me to watch him make small-batch maple syrup in the traditional, old-fashioned way. Every one of the dozen family-farm Collective members, who tap from as few as 300 maple trees to as many as 6,000, source their own syrup.
“There’s no blending of sap or syrup, and each glass bottle displays the name and location of the farm where the maple trees were tapped and their sap boiled into syrup,” Krieg explained. “We’re Vermont dairy farmers, sawyers, stone masons and tradespeople.”
The Collective offers four distinct flavor profiles: golden and delicate; amber and rich; dark and robust; and very dark and strong. No matter what equipment or techniques a sugarmaker uses, the same rule of thumb applies: it takes approximately 40 gallons of watery sap to produce a gallon of maple syrup.
“Yesterday I collected about 1,000 gallons of sap from my 300 taps, likely the most during this season,” Krieg explained. “Using traditional methods, I only can make about one-and-a-half gallons of maple syrup per hour.” Sticking with this slow, unhurried approach, he believes, serves to retain the subtle flavor differences that characterize each farm’s syrup, reflecting its soils and other aspects of its sugarbush.
Small-scale sugarmaking in the Green Mountain State became more nearly the exception in this century as more efficient, large-scale production became dominant.
Vermont’s 2025 maple production of almost 3.1 million gallons of syrup represents a whopping 650% increase since 2005, according to USDA statistics published by the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers’ Association (VMSMA). Vermont is hands-down at the top, producing 53% of the U.S. maple syrup.
That’s why members of the Collective banded together to preserve Vermont’s small-scale syrup production, using traditional methods.
In 2020, most small-scale maple producers were particularly hard-hit by reduced sales. Vermont’s many farmers markets, where most producers then sold their maple syrup face-to-face, were closed to help slow the spread of COVID-19. Many sugarmakers were left with unsold syrup and growing worries about their economic viability.
Demand for Vermont maple syrup rose rapidly, however, after public schools and many other gathering places were shuttered. Families spent more time at home, apparently eating pancakes together more often.
To meet the growing demand, large maple producers ramped up their quicker, more efficient production methods and increased bulk buying. Installing the reverse osmosis process that concentrates the percentage of sugar to substantially reduce boiling time allows operators to enlarge their capacity and reduce labor costs. Large producers had already switched from wood-fired to burning diesel oil in the boiling process. Firewood is a “hands-on” fuel that’s time-consuming to cut, split, dry and stack and then to use for boiling sap.
During this time, Krieg was dealing with his own health crisis. He was successfully treated for a life-threatening blood cancer that was diagnosed in 2019. Krieg spent six weeks being treated for leukemia as an in-patient followed by eight months as an out-patient.
He, with the support of his wife and their blended family, decided to build a sugarhouse on their small farm so that he could once again boil maple syrup, which he had greatly enjoyed in the past and dreamed of for his future.
Krieg constructed his sugarhouse almost entirely by himself while he was an out-patient. He also talked with small-scale sugarmakers and consumers and enrolled in VMSMS classes. Krieg grew to recognize how much the state’s maple industry had already changed, and he feared small-scale producers who embraced traditional methods would be squeezed out of this economy.
Fortunately, he envisioned a way to support a niche market for distinctive single-source maple syrup. The Vermont Maple Farmers Collective was officially incorporated in November 2020 with a starting roster of five small family farms. It now boasts a dozen farms, with four more on a wait list.
“I don’t want to add more until I know that the Collective can sell all it produces,” Krieg explained. “Our goal is to keep an important part of Vermont’s heritage thriving.”
Mail order customers seeking single-source syrup can order directly online from maplefarmers.com. Krieg reported that maple flavor lovers enjoy experiencing the clear differences in the Collective’s syrups that when mass-produced can be flattened or almost lost.
Current prices are half-pint bottles at $10; pints, $16; and quarts, $26. Half-pint sampler collections start at $29. Information is also provided on each farmer and farm.
by Edith Tucker
