Québec’s Legal Maple Syrup Cartel Dictates Prices For Vermont Maple Producers
Syrup producer David Hall near Lac Brome, Québec. Hall is a regional president of the Federation of Québec Maple Syrup Producers, a government-sanctioned union of 13,500 syrup producers across the province. Photo by Lorne Matalon for VPR
While Vermont is by far the highest producing maple syrup state in the United States, 70 percent of the world’s maple syrup is made in Québec.
And that’s where the benchmark global price for bulk maple syrup — the price paid by processors to Vermont’s maple syrup producers — is set each year by a powerful, but legal, cartel.
The Québec cartel has been largely successful in stabilizing prices in an industry where the supply is never predictable because of weather.