Quebec’s strategic maple syrup reserve is down to zero

Quebec’s strategic maple syrup reserve has been emptied, the head of the province’s producers said Oct. 19, warning that a poor harvest could cost the industry customers.

“Our strategic reserve has been reduced to zero,” Luc Goulet, president of the Producteurs et productrices acéricoles du Québec (PPAQ), said in an interview at the release of a report on the industry’s economic benefits. The reserve is meant to steady supply and prices from one harvest to the next. Goulet said it ran out as sales kept climbing.

He pointed to the shortages of 2007 and 2008, when buyers turned to other sweeteners. “We lost some markets because the product wasn’t available,” Goulet said (translated from French).

Exports have grown quickly. They rose 9.34 per cent in 2024 and 15.8 per cent in 2025, reaching 177 million pounds last year, up from 88 million in 2015, according to the report. From January to August 2026 they were up 2.48 per cent from a year earlier. U.S. commercial buyers stocked up in 2025 over fears that President Donald Trump would follow through on tariff threats.

Louis Turenne, president of the Conseil de l’industrie de l’érable, said about 65 per cent of exports go to the United States, down from about 80 per cent two decades ago. “It’s always hard to beat an exceptional year,” Turenne said of this year’s smaller gains (translated from French).

The report, commissioned by the two associations, estimates the industry contributed $1.21 billion to Quebec’s gross domestic product in 2025. It employs more than 10,000 full-time equivalent workers and generated $285 million in tax revenue, not counting municipal taxes and royalties on public land. Quebec produces more than 70 per cent of the maple syrup in North America.

Goulet said Quebec’s investment in the sector is too low and that he hopes to be heard by the new Parti Québécois government. “Do we want the sector to stagnate and set itself a limit?” he asked (translated from French). He said the potential for new maple groves in the province remains large.

Turenne urged Quebec to give producers financial support and to keep helping processors open markets in Europe, Australia and Asia.

The industry has been turning to automation and expansion to keep up with demand, and producers earlier warned of major consequences if U.S. tariffs went ahead.

The report’s figures were reported by The Canadian Press and confirmed by CTV News and BNN Bloomberg.

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