Maple syrup is a sweet business. So sweet, in fact, for a fifth generation maple syrup producer in New Brunswick that he turned what is typically seen as a seasonal business into a year-round venture when he opened Briggs Maples in 2010.

Located in the Fundy Chocolate River Station, a popular tourist destination in Riverview offering a great view of the region’s world-famous Tidal Bore, Briggs Maples is a combination processing plant, retail gift shop and maple syrup museum. Here, visitors can see maple syrup bottled and transformed into other sweet treats – and even sample maple taffy on snow, any time of the year. “I wanted to capture the tourist market and continue to develop my wholesale business,” says owner David Briggs.

Briggs certainly knows maple syrup. It’s one of the reasons he was selected as one of 16 state and provincial representatives to take part in a survey on new international grading and labelling guidelines. He submitted samples of pure NB maple syrup that were combined with samples from the other syrup producing states and provinces to help set new standards that will provide consistency across the producing area.

It makes sense that Briggs would know the industry since he grew up in the province ranked the third largest producer of maple syrup in the world after Quebec and Vermont – the province that is currently home to the president of the International Maple Syrup Institute (IMSI) board of directors, New Brunswick Maple Syrup Association general manager, Yvon Poitras; the province that recently hosted the joint meeting of IMSI and the North American Maple Syrup Council for the first time ever; and the province that has two of the largest maple syrup producers in the world, including the largest organic producer.

Yes, a sweet business indeed.

By Trudy Kelly Forsythe