By Hannah Raykher ’23
Staff Writer
Beginning in 2011, in Quebec, Canada, a group led by Richard Vallières stole over 9,500 barrels of maple syrup from the maple syrup reserves held by the Federation of Maple Syrup Producers, according to The Guardian. The Federation encompasses almost 7,000 different maple syrup producers accounting for almost 80 percent of the world’s supply of maple syrup. In March 2022, Vallières’ trial concluded with a settlement to the Canadian government.
Vallières was aware that the reserves were only inspected once a year and took advantage of this by draining the syrup from their barrels and filling the vessels with water as a replacement, as reported by The Guardian. According to Forbes, though, the theft was discovered in 2012 by an inspector when they climbed on top of the barrels during an inspection. The barrels usually weigh around 600 pounds, but these were lighter after Vallières and his team failed to refill a few of the barrels with water after siphoning the syrup. In all, the group stole 18.7 million Canadian dollars worth of syrup.
According to The Guardian, Vallières was found guilty of theft, fraud and trafficking in 2016. This instance was not the first time Vallières had been involved with the illegal maple syrup trade. In a 2007 attempt to seek revenge against the Federation for house seizure, he was fined CA$1.8 million for illegally selling maple syrup, as reported by the Guardian.
Vallières reported to the court that he profited CA$1 million from the 2011-2012 theft, according to the Guardian. BBC News reported updates from Vallières’ trial on March 31, 2022, revealing that the courts have declared that Vallières must pay a CA$9.1 million fine to the Canadian government. Vallières will have to pay back the full amount of what the stolen syrup was sold for and his CA$1 million in profits, according to the Guardian.
Rose Hamby ’23 has worked in the maple syrup industry and is familiar with its time-intensive production process. “I began tapping trees in high school when I started as a volunteer for a local lake reservation. Every winter, beginning in January and ending in late March, the teen volunteers were asked to tap the maple trees on the reservation for sap,” Hamby said. “The process of making maple syrup is also known as sugaring and involves three main steps: Collecting the sap, boiling down the sap [and] packing and grading the syrup. The best days to collect sap are warm days — after nights when the temperature has gotten to be freezing or below — because the sap can flow easily out of the tree. Sap can be collected from any type of maple tree to make maple syrup. However, sugar maples are the most commonly utilized trees for making maple syrup because of the large amounts of sap they can produce … Syrup comes in the letter grades A and B. Syrup is graded based on how early in the season it is collected.”
Given the time and resources entailed in this process, the stolen maple syrup came at the cost of not only money, but also the time, effort and labor of those who harvested it.