Canada's maple syrup reserve almost empty as sap season at risk of becoming another casualty of the winter that wasn't

[kevinUsa]

Throughout what should have been the frigid depths of winter, an unseasonably warm sun beat down on a series of billboards and bus-stop ads across Toronto. The campaign urged passers-by to consume even more of a familiar, maybe even patriotic, household staple: maple syrup. 

 

"It's not just for breakfast," the ads propose. 

 

The implicit assumption of the billboards, and of pancake-eaters nationwide, is that maple syrup will always be available for breakfast. But a collision of forces have brought the billion-plus dollar industry to an uncertain moment.

 

Quebec's strategic reserve of maple syrup, a trio of vast warehouses that typically hold tens of thousands of barrels, is nearing empty after a couple warm winters collided with a pandemic-era spike in demand. Built to hold 133 million pounds of syrup, the reserve has dwindled to just 6.9 million pounds, a fraction of where it sat just four years ago.

 

Now, as the sugaring season runs on after a balmy winter-that-wasn't shattered historical records, producers are eyeing taps with concern. 

 

"We really, really need a good production year this year, because we want to not only fill the markets with the product that it needs, but also be able to build back the strategic reserve," said Simon Doré-Ouellet, Deputy General-Manager of Québec Maple Syrup Producers. 

 

Doré-Ouellet said there is no concern of an immediate shortage, and his organization is distributing millions of new taps across the province in an effort to ramp up production over the coming years. Quebec provides roughly 90 per cent of the maple syrup tapped in Canada, and more than two-thirds globally.  

[kevinUsa]

But the reserve, the only one like it in the world, exists in part to stabilize supply — and prices — in Canada and beyond. It has also provided the foundation to push Canadian maple syrup into new global markets as distant as Australia and Japan.  

 

"You can go into any Metro or Food Basics or Loblaws or whatever, and you could find maple syrup at a price that's fairly predictable. Well, it might be a lot less predictable if we start to get to the end of the reserve," said Warren Mabee, Director of the Queen’s Institute for Energy and Environmental Policy and an expert on forestry and forest products.

 

"One of the worst things that could happen would be to have a shortage of product, given how much we're trying to push maple syrup and export it worldwide. So it's really important for us to be able to count on that strategic reserve," said Doré-Ouellet.

 

In some ways the current stresses are a signpost of success. Maple syrup consumption has spiked in recent years, seemingly driven by sticky pandemic habits. 

 

Syrup sales were rising at respectable, single-digit percentages annually prior to 2020. Then COVID-19 hit, restaurants closed, and people started cooking at home. From 2020 onwards, sales spiked up to 20 per cent annually, and have stayed high. 

 

The Quebec federation has also been heavily promoting Canadian maple syrup, both at home and abroad. The Toronto billboards are their work: Ontario's vastly smaller industry only produces about half the maple syrup consumed in this province, with Quebec back-stopping the rest. In Canada's biggest export market, the U.S., the industry group is battling the twin foes of corn syrup and table syrup. And overseas, the group has been promoting Canadian maple syrup in countries like the U.K., Germany and Japan, and for the last year and a half, Australia. "There's a lot of interest around brunch in Australia, so that's great for maple," Doré-Ouellet says.

 

The strategic reserve has been critical to these forays, he adds. 

[kevinUsa]

https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/canadas-maple-syrup-reserve-almost-empty-as-sap-season-at-risk-of-becoming-another-casualty/article_6f498bce-e788-11ee-8773-c71464d8be74.amp.html

 

[jalsa01]

matter in 2 lines

[r2d2]

ayyo entha kashtamochchindi.. ippudu iHop lo pancakes etla tinaali?

[shaktimaan]

29 minutes ago, r2d2 said:

ayyo entha kashtamochchindi.. ippudu iHop lo pancakes etla tinaali?

sugar shortage em ladu ga, that fake syrup should be fine 

[JaiBalayyaaa]

41 minutes ago, jalsa01 said:

matter in 2 lines

The only thing Canada can make is maple syrup. They ran out of it. 

[lollilolli2020]

29 minutes ago, r2d2 said:

ayyo entha kashtamochchindi.. ippudu iHop lo pancakes etla tinaali?

idi vundaga maple syrup enduku dandaga; btw I think ihop doesn't serve authentic maple syrup. 

[lollilolli2020]

Just now, JaiBalayyaaa said:

The only thing Canada can make is maple syrup. They ran out of it. 

@CanadianMalodu anna chusava idi 

@kevinUsa endayya idi ila kindal chestunnru mee trudeauland ni 
 

[CanadianMalodu]

6 minutes ago, JaiBalayyaaa said:

The only thing Canada can make is maple syrup. They ran out of it. 

Canada can and used to make a lot of things. Free trade took that away those and moved to Mexico and China.

[CanadianMalodu]

14 minutes ago, lollilolli2020 said:

@CanadianMalodu anna chusava idi 

@kevinUsa endayya idi ila kindal chestunnru mee trudeauland ni 
 

Maple syrup ee kadha. Lite. 

[lollilolli2020]

2 minutes ago, CanadianMalodu said:

Canada can and used to make a lot of things. Free trade took that away those and moved to Mexico and China.

Oil and Gas; 
Lumbering
Mining 
Automobile 
these are the top things that come to my mind. Wokeism lo kottukupoyi everything revolves round Climate Virtue Signaling.