A maple syrup business plan sets out how many taps you'll run and how much syrup they'll make, what a gallon costs, who buys it and at what price, and the first year month by month. Maple has a shape no other food business quite shares: the whole year's product is made in about six weeks of sap season, then sold one jug at a time for the next twelve months. So the plan is really two plans: a season that spends money on fuel, filters and long nights, and a year of selling that brings it back. In the example below, a Vermont sugarmaker with 1,200 taps makes about 300 gallons, sells it as quarts and pints at the farm and markets, quarts to shops and maple cream, and ends the first year about $4,400 ahead on $22,600 of sales, after paying $20 an hour for every hour of work. Below is a description example, what a gallon costs, prices, the season and the year, the startup budget, and a free template.
The short version
- Describe the business in a paragraph: how many taps, where you sell, the sugarhouse, the goals.
- Taps make the plan: in the example, about a quarter of a gallon of syrup a tap, 300 gallons from 1,200.
- Cost a gallon with your time in it: the labor of tapping, tubing and boiling is most of it.
- Price direct, wholesale and maple cream separately; a quart sold at the farm leaves almost three times a shop quart.
- The season's costs come before the year's sales; the working cash carries them.
- Every jug comes from a boil, and the boil date and grade are its lot.
- TaroStack keeps each boil as a lot and sells the year's syrup down by grade and date. More below.
Part 1: the business description
Sugar Maple Ridge, a made-up maple producer in Vermont I use in these examples, writes:
Sugar Maple Ridge runs 1,200 taps on tubing and vacuum in a leased sugarbush, boiling on a wood-fired evaporator. We sell syrup in quarts and pints at our sugarhouse and two farmers markets, to six local shops, and as maple cream. In our first year we plan to make about 300 gallons.
Part 2: what a gallon costs
| A gallon of syrup | Cost |
|---|---|
| Fuel for the evaporator | $4.40 |
| Labor: tapping, tubing repairs, gathering, boiling, filtering, about an hour at $20 | $20.00 |
| Filters and defoamer | $1.20 |
| New taps and droplines, $0.60 a tap a year | $2.40 |
| A gallon of syrup | $28.00 |
About 40 gallons of sap boil down to one of syrup, depending on the sap's sugar, which is why fuel and long nights add up. Then each product adds its container and bottling:
| Per unit | Quart, direct | Pint, direct | Quart, wholesale | Maple cream, 8 oz |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syrup | $7.00 | $3.50 | $7.00 | $1.96 |
| Jug or jar, with label | $1.35 | $1.10 | $1.35 | $0.95 |
| Bottling or making, at $20 an hour | $1.00 | $0.75 | $1.00 | $1.33 |
| Card fee, 3% | $0.66 | $0.39 | $0.30 | |
| Case and delivery share | $0.20 | |||
| Variable cost | $10.01 | $5.74 | $9.55 | $4.54 |
Maple cream is syrup cooked further and stirred until it sets; an 8-ounce jar uses about 0.07 gallons of syrup and four minutes of work, and it sells for much more than the syrup in it. How to cost a product from its inputs is in steps in recipe costing.
Part 3: customers and prices
| Product | Price | Variable cost | Contribution | Margin | A month at full speed |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Maple syrup, quart, direct | $22.00 | $10.01 | $11.99 | 54.5% | 40 |
| Maple syrup, pint, direct | $13.00 | $5.74 | $7.26 | 55.8% | 60 |
| Maple syrup, quart, wholesale | $14.00 | $9.55 | $4.45 | 31.8% | 70 |
| Maple cream, 8 oz | $10.00 | $4.54 | $5.46 | 54.6% | 50 |
A quart sold at the sugarhouse leaves $11.99; the same quart to a shop leaves $4.45. Shops still matter: they sell all year, including the months nobody drives out to a sugarhouse. How to price for shops so it still pays is in how to price handmade items for wholesale. Vermont, like other maple states, has its own rules for grading and labeling syrup, so check your state's agriculture agency before the first label is printed.
Part 4: the season and the year
Fixed costs are $535 a month: the sugarbush lease ($100), insurance ($80), the vehicle ($100), market fees averaged over the year ($120), power for the vacuum pump ($60), the website and online shop ($40), and software and card fees ($35). The first syrup is ready at the end of March; sales build through the summer and peak with foliage and the holidays:
| Month | Quarts, direct | Pints | Quarts, wholesale | Maple cream | Sales | Profit | Cash, year to date |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Jan | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $0 | −$535 | −$535 |
| Feb | 0 | 0 | 0 | 0 | $0 | −$535 | −$1,070 |
| Mar | 12 | 18 | 21 | 15 | $942 | −$85 | −$1,155 |
| Apr | 24 | 36 | 42 | 30 | $1,884 | $365 | −$790 |
| May | 20 | 30 | 35 | 25 | $1,570 | $215 | −$575 |
| Jun | 24 | 36 | 42 | 30 | $1,884 | $365 | −$211 |
| Jul | 28 | 42 | 49 | 35 | $2,198 | $515 | $304 |
| Aug | 28 | 42 | 49 | 35 | $2,198 | $515 | $819 |
| Sep | 32 | 48 | 56 | 40 | $2,512 | $665 | $1,484 |
| Oct | 40 | 60 | 70 | 50 | $3,140 | $965 | $2,448 |
| Nov | 40 | 60 | 70 | 50 | $3,140 | $965 | $3,413 |
| Dec | 40 | 60 | 70 | 50 | $3,140 | $965 | $4,378 |
The year's sales are $22,608 and the profit $4,378, on top of $20 an hour for the work. The year sells about 280 of the 300 gallons; the rest carries into next January and February, which is how a second year has sales before the sap runs.
The table counts each gallon's cost as it sells. The bank account sees the season first: about $2,400 of fuel, filters and taps goes out in February and March, before a jug is sold, on top of the fixed costs. If the labor is your own, it's paid as the syrup sells; if you pay a helper in sap season, add their wages to the working cash too. That's why the plan holds $4,000 of working cash; how buying ahead of a season ties up cash is in seasonal inventory.
Part 5: the startup budget
| Item | Example |
|---|---|
| Used 2 by 6 evaporator | $6,000 |
| Tubing, mainline and taps for 1,200 taps | $4,800 |
| Vacuum pump | $1,500 |
| Sap tank and sugarhouse fixes | $2,000 |
| Filter press and bottling canner | $1,800 |
| Jugs, jars and labels, first order | $800 |
| Label design | $300 |
| Working cash | $4,000 |
| Total to start | $21,200 |
At $4,378 a year, the $17,200 of equipment takes about four years to earn back, which is why starting smaller, with buckets or a smaller used evaporator, and adding taps as the sales grow, is worth pricing out too.
Get the template
Download the maple syrup business plan workbook. Four sheets: your products with price, variable cost and monthly volume at full speed; the year, month by month from January, with sales, profit and cash; your fixed costs; and your startup budget with working cash. Change the monthly percentages to match your own selling season. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
A season's syrup sits in barrels and jugs from thirty boils, at three or four grades, and gets bottled a case at a time all year. By August nobody knows how much amber is left, which barrel a shop's quarts came from, or whether there's enough dark syrup to make the maple cream for the holidays.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps the season's syrup as lots and sells it down through the year.
Each boil a lot. Each boil or barrel goes into stock as a lot with its date and grade, and units convert: syrup made by the gallon, bottled by the quart and pint. Bottling is a batch that takes syrup from the lot used, along with the jugs and labels, so every jug carries its boil.
The year's stock, by grade. Stock is shown by lot and site, so the amber left in August is a number, and lots close to their date show in your alerts. One report walks any lot to every customer who got it.
And the shops' orders. Shop orders are sales orders that show whether the quarts to fill them are bottled while you're still typing, the reorder list works in days of cover for jugs and labels, and margins are reported by product and by customer.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Amber left in August | Count the barrels | Stock by lot and grade |
| Which boil is in this quart? | Unknown | The bottling batch's lot |
| Dark syrup for maple cream | Found short in November | Stock by lot, and the reorder list |
| Shop or sugarhouse, which pays? | A feeling | Margins by customer |
Lots, recipes, batches and margins by product and customer are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.