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TECHNICAL SUPPORT FOR MAPLE
FEEDBACK
We received a comment in the October Maple Syrup Digest from Roy
Hutchinson, the editor of that publication regarding molded
sugar candies. I stand corrected. Roy said that the lady's
problem in making sugar candies was with the inverts rather than
the temperature. I agree with Roy that we should use our
lightest color syrup (with low inverts) to make the candies.
If, however, our lightest syrup is medium grade, we could use
the higher temperature. The higher temp is a safety net for
making candies from slightly darker syrup. Thanks for the
comments, Roy.
FILL
At one of the stops on the fall tour, the owner mentioned that
in filling a gallon jug with syrup, he found that it weighed
much more than the eleven pounds we would expect. He said he
remedied that by filling by weight rather than by fill. While
this seems logical, there are two rather large problems with
that approach. A serious one is customer satisfaction with a
not so "generous" fill. Justin Rashid, owner of American Spoon
Foods said that particularly when you are charging a premium
price for your product you must have a generous fill. So,
according to his orders, we fill his eight ounce jars with ten
ounces of Maple Cream. And we charge him for it. The other
one is that the amount of air space above the product can, in
storage, be a problem to the product. More mold can occur.
"Layering" (the darkening of a layer of syrup on the surface)
can be more of a problem, especially in glass. If you filled
your 3/4 pint flask with 12 fluid ounces of syrup, it would be
.75 ounce short of full. If you put it on a shelf in a store
next to a competitor's, customers and ultimately the store would
shy away from your product because it doesn't look full. The
reason we have this problem with containers is that many of our
containers are made in Canada and are actually Metric measure.
When a container manufacturer is making pint glass or plastic
jugs they make 500 ML jugs instead and label them as pints.
They are only 27 ML larger. That is hardly noticeable. As long
as it's a little bigger it's okay to label them that way.
The answer is to get an accurate scale, know how much you are
selling, and charge for it. If that means a 5 or 10% raise in
your prices, so be it. It's time you had a raise. You'll still
sell out. I raised my prices across the board by 10% the 1st of
this year and my total sales to date this year are more than 20%
higher than last year.
STICKY BUSINESS
Many of us are buying syrup this year to fulfill our customers'
demands. For some it's a new experience. If you need to fill
40 quarts and you buy a ten gallon milk can of syrup and you
think you have enough, think again. The milk can will hang on
to a layer of syrup. The pail you transfer the syrup to the
bottler with will hang on to some more. Sticky stuff, isn't
it. The bottler will grab a bunch and then you'll heat it until
it gives off steam. Steam is water leaving your product, so
there is a little less. Oops, you spilled a little and that's
sticky, too. Right there on the table and a little on your
shoe. Now you put the hydrometer in the syrup to see if it's
getting too sweet. Don't want to have it sugar in the jugs.
Maple Syrup sticks to everything that it touches. If you can
get by with only a 5% loss in this process, you're doing very
well, according to a Vermont publication. An example. My
customer wants his 1000 jugs filled with syrup. I open a 55
gallon drum of syrup. How many jugs should be able to fill from
it? Well, 55 X 16 = 880 jugs. 16 is the number of 1/2 pints in
a gallon. I drained the barrel and got 828 jugs from it.
That's 52 jugs of sticky, spill and overfill that I couldn't
sell or 5.9%.
The key is, Know how much you are selling and be sure you are
getting paid for it.
PLEASE NOTE: My E-mail address has changed to
tdmaple@dsnet.us if
you have any questions or comments or corrections.
My phone is the same: 1-800-50MAPLE
My fax is: 1-888-50MAPLE
Terry DeLoughary
N17934 Eustis Road
Bark River, MI 49807
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