Celebrate Spring with Local Maple Syrup: After a long winter, Ontario’s maple trees produce the sap used to make delicious maple products that you can enjoy such as syrup, maple butter, taffy, candy, sauces and maple sap drinks.
Syrup production begins in southwestern Ontario and progresses towards eastern Ontario, the north and northeast, where the first sap harvest may differ by as much as two to three weeks.
During harvest season, more than 1.5-million litres of syrup is made, making Ontario one of the top three producers in Canada, grossing more than $32 million in maple product sales and contributing over $53 million to Canada’s GDP.
Enjoy Ontario’s maple syrup now and all year round by:
- Enjoying a delicious meal at a local pancake house or trying a new maple syrup recipe.
- Taking an educational maple tour or visiting a maple syrup producer to learn more about how this tasty treat is made.
- Buying unique maple products right from the farm.
- Taking the family to one of the season’s maple syrup festivals, running throughout April.
- Looking for the Foodland Ontario or Ontario Maple Syrup logo when buying maple syrup.
Supporting Ontario’s agricultural sector is part of the government’s economic plan for Ontario. The four part plan is building Ontario up by investing in people’s talents and skills, building new public infrastructure like roads and transit, creating a dynamic, supportive environment where business thrives, and building a secure savings plan so everyone can afford to retire.
Quick Facts
- Ideal temperatures for maple syrup production are -5 °C during the night and 5 °C during the day.
- Ontario will be consulting with producers on how maple products in Ontario should be graded and classified. These consultations will also consider regulatory changes that could encourage innovation and improved food safety to support the sector’s growth.
- In Ontario, maple syrup is produced from February through April, from the sap of four maple tree species.
- It takes 40-45 litres of maple sap to make one litre of maple syrup.
- Many First Nations, including the Algonquin peoples, tapped maples for sap and used it to flavour boiled meats and porridge, and as part of a health tonic. They were once the largest producers of maple sugar.
Source: Ontario Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs
http://news.ontario.ca/omafra/en/2015/04/taste-ontarios-sweetest-season.html
