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Maple syrup experts

The maple syrup was flowing – on pancakes – last weekend at Jakeman’s Maple Products, north of Sweaburg.

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First introduced at Jakeman’s Maple Products in 1967 as a Canadian Centennial project, the Pancake Breakfasts, which run Saturdays and Sundays through March and the first weekend of April, began as a fundraiser organized by the local Women’s Institute.

Distroscale

Decades later when that group disbanded, the Jakeman family tried to carry on the tradition at their maple sugar bush property.

Chris Abbott/Tillsonburg NewsJakeman’s Maple Products, near Sweaburg, hosted a Maple Weekend March 9-10 with a Pancake Breakfast provided by the North Oxford Calf 4H Club. Pancake breakfasts continue on weekends in March, Saturday and Sunday 9-1:30, and the first weekend in April, with different 4H Clubs preparing the breakfasts.TN

“But it was too much to run the Pancake House and make maple syrup at the same time,” said Bob Jakeman. “So the Lions ran it for about four years. Then we had a proposal from the 4H’ers. Mrs. Fleming was instrumental in getting the 4H’ers involved (14 years ago) and yes, we’ve always served in this room. We also had an annex… but we’ve taken that over for production. Next year we’ll probably open the annex back up again because we’re building a new plant and hopefully we’ll be in it by then.”

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An official ground-breaking ceremony for their new production facility held in June 2018 included the Jakeman family and South-West Oxford Mayor David Mayberry, all smiling and holding shovels. Since last summer there have been some delays.

“We’ve had a number of hiccups since then,” said Jakeman. “The (South-West Oxford) building inspector has changed… I believe we’re on our fourth building inspector. Apparently it’s affected a lot of businesses in the area.”

Back in June they had hoped to have the outer shell completed in the fall, and the interior by December 2018 to begin production in January.

“We have the framework up… and things are on hold,” said Bob. “Hopefully next week we’ll get the approvals through to get back to construction again.”

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Maple syrup ‘season’, when sap is flowing, typically spans several weeks in Ontario between February/March and March/April, depending on temperature, some years as early as January, but production is year-round, said Bob’s son Devin Jakeman, the production manager. When the new facility is ready, they will begin production immediately, regardless of season.

“We’re bottling and packaging all year round,” Devin nodded. “We’re hoping for, realistically, I think late summer or early fall to get in and do stuff, just because of how many delays we’ve had.”

“At first we thought January, then we thought March, then we thought June or July,” said Bob.

“There’s quite a lot of work to do inside the building,” said Devin. “A lot of stuff is going through the floor, so there’s so much prep work to be done, then start bringing in all the machines.”

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Jakeman’s Maple Products is currently the largest packer of maple syrup in Ontario. They have customers across Canada, including nearly every international airport in the country, and they are building an international customer base supplying prestige customers like Disney and various cruise ships.

“Most of our development went into smaller gifts shops in places like Banff, Jasper, Niagara and so on,” said Bob. “But these guys, my sons here (Devin and Chad), they’ve gotten us into grocery. We sell to Farm Boy, Metro, Food Basics, No Frills, several independents, some Foodlands, and through Gordon Food Service and Sysco.”

A president of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association in the late-80s, Bob remembers a time when most of the membership was tapping 500 or so taps.

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“They were hobbyists – they could sell their production to their friends and neighbours. And marketing was a problem for us. I thought, we could really use somebody that can really sell this syrup and put it into mainstream. So we struggled at marketing for a few years, and finally it’s come full circle. It took a long time to get our credibility up. It took a couple of articles in the National Post, they did taste tests of maple syrup, and son of a gun we were always No. 1 – in taste – ahead of our Quebec competitors.”

Considered one of the largest maple syrup producers in the world, Quebec is their main competition.

“All of our competition comes from Quebec and the States,” said Devin. “Or the east coast.”

“New Brunswick is starting to be a big player because they’re production units are large,” said Bob, who is currently on the Canadian Maple Syrup Marketing Committee. “And Nova Scotia.”

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What makes Jakeman’s ‘amber grade’ maple syrup special?

“It’s kind of a trade secret,” Bob winked.

“We blend, and… it’s what we do,” Devin chuckled.

“One of the biggest problems in the industry is getting a consistent product,” said Bob. “So what we do is we get consistency, and he (Devin) puts the finish on it.

“We consistently bottle amber. Golden, we use in making our candy, the maple sugar candy leaves and so on, and some of our fine products. But amber is where we like to be and that’s what we try to buy. We try to stay away from the darker grades. The darker grades are good to use as flavouring in food products, but it’s not so good to put on your pancakes.”

Jakeman’s buys syrup from across Ontario to blend at their Sweaburg facility.

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“Sault Ste. Marie, up to Ottawa…” said Devin.

“Pembroke, Cornwall,” said Bob.

“We really stretch this entire province,” said Devin.

“And we’re the only ones,” said Bob.

“We have farmers who tap up to 50,000 trees. There’s one new operation, up in Sault Ste. Marie and they’re aiming for 250,000 – we’re not buying from them right now.”

Located in the heart of southwestern Ontario near Hwy 401, central in Ontario and Canada, Jakeman’s has marketing advantages. And they use those advantages to help maple syrup ‘farmers.’

“These guys that are making syrup are all farmers,” said Devin. “And as all farmers do, they just want to make the crop, sell it to the ‘grain elevator’ or whatever, and it’s gone. When we sold equipment, we hit a roadblock where we couldn’t sell any evaporators any more, because you can only make so much syrup and sell it at the end of the road or local market. There was no room for expansion.

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“So that’s when we started marketing syrup. We had to provide them a market. In Quebec, they have a market – the Federation. It’s quota, just like dairy, where you’re only allowed to produce so much amount of syrup and all that syrup goes straight to the Federation. Here we don’t have that, so we need somebody to sell the syrup and that’s where we took it on. We are looking to expand Ontario’s syrup.”

With Jakeman’s marketing, essentially ‘carrying the load,’ the hobbyist farmers started tapping more and more trees.

“Now it’s actually a good source of income because they are able to keep expanding,” Devin noted.

“In our development, I sold a lot of equipment to farmers and started them up,” said Bob. “So I have a whole group of people that I can draw from and utilize their crops. And it’s fairly recently that we’ve done this. Devin’s brother (Chad) does a lot of the marketing and Devin does the production. They are a great team and one complements the other.”

“More and more producers phone me, that I’ve never heard of, that want to sell sap,” Devin nodded. “They just found out about us or want to get into it.”

So the potential for growth is there, he said, and that’s why it’s important to complete their new production facility.

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