MONTREAL – Quebec’s maple syrup producers are rejoicing after breaking records during this year’s harvest.
According to the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers (FPAQ), Quebec produced 148.2 million pounds of maple syrup in 2016 — about 24 Olympic swimming pools, or 90 million cans of liquid gold.
That’s a 23 per cent jump from the previous record of 120 million pounds, which was set in 2013.
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With 42.7 million taps in operation, the province’s 7,300 maple syrup producers said they were able to get 3.47 pounds per tap — more than the previous best of 2.82 pounds per tap in 2013.
“We’ve never seen a harvest of this magnitude. Our trees yielded huge amounts of maple water,” said Serge Beaulieu, president of the federation.
“We have to keep in mind that in the maple syrup industry, our income is wholly dependent on harvest volumes and it all plays out in just a few days of the year.”
This year’s harvest created $400 million earnings.
A very long season
According to maple syrup producers, this year’s spring weather, with frequent periods of freezing and thaws, was ideal for production.
In the south shore, the first sap began running in the third week of February.
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The last runs of the season came in early May in the Bas-Saint-Laurent and Gaspésie regions, creating about eight weeks of production.
A record harvest
The 2016 harvest exceeded both the 2013 production record of 120.3 million pounds and the average annual production over the past five years — 107 million pounds.
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With over 300,000 barrels, Quebec’s quality inspectors have already inspected and graded 10 million more pounds of maple syrup than this time last year.
About 80 per cent of the province’s maple syrup will be exported to over 53 countries around the world.
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