Aspen, beech, and birch sap seen as small niche, but could have potential for new revenue streams
By Holly Riddle
A Northern New York Agricultural Development Program (NNYADP)-funded research project recently wrapped up, looking into the potential of tapping aspen, beech and birch trees throughout the Adirondacks to turn into beverages. After surveying a panel of 100 taste-testers at Cornell Sensory Evaluation Center, Cornell Food Scientist Catherine Monserrate confirmed that a refrigerated sap beverage — a product she noted could best be likened to coconut water — could be a viable additional revenue stream for the region’s maple producers.
Currently, finding Adirondack aspen, beech and birch sap products, whether made into syrups or beverages, is somewhat difficult. The North Country’s largest and most prominent producer of beech and birch sap syrups (and, in fact, the leading producer of birch sap and syrup in North America overall) is The Forest Farmers of Marshfield, Vermont and Lyon Mountain. The business is helmed by Michael Farrell, previous director of the Cornell University Uihlein Forest in Lake Placid, where the recent NNYADP research partially took place. Farrell clarifies that maple products still account for the vast majority of his business. Still, he saw a business opportunity in filling a niche market with a high-value product that sells for a much higher price than maple syrup, due to the relatively small availability.
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Limits to launching new products
So why haven’t more maple producers tapped into this niche market and its profitability? Extensive hurdles stand in the way.
“It’s challenging, from a regulatory standpoint and a shelf-stable standpoint, to market sap as a beverage. In addition…you get a limited amount of sap out of, especially, a beech tree or walnut tree. You don’t wind up making a lot of syrup.”
Michael Farrell, The Forest Farmers
He also points out that the concept of harvesting beech sap is relatively new as well, only propelled via University of Vermont research over the last decade. Additionally, the Adirondacks’ beech trees are largely threatened by beech bark disease.
As for birch sap, he noted, “unless you have a really good system for turning that sap into syrup — and we invest in the technology to be able to do that in a cost-effective, efficient way that actually winds up with a really good-tasting syrup — the birch syrup doesn’t taste very good.” This is due, in part, to birch sap’s lesser sugar content, which is about half what producers expect from sugar maple sap.
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Worth branching out?
Despite these challenges, Aaron Wightman, co-director of the Cornell University Maple Program and part of the NNYADP’s research team, said that diversification among maple syrup producers through tapping aspen, beech and birch trees is a worthwhile pursuit for a few reasons.
“Maple syrup producers already have all the right equipment to collect and process sap, and they may have these other [tree] species in their woods alongside their maples — so it’s just a matter of tapping the trees. The equipment’s already there. It would be an easy value-add to their operations,” he explained. “Also, the timing is different for some of the sap flows, so it could be a way to use the same equipment without buying more equipment. If the maple sap run ends in April and then the birch sap run begins around the same time, you can just switch from using the equipment for maple over to birch. We’re trying to find ways for people to make more money from what they already have, and to diversify their product line…”
“And our climate is changing,” he added. “Having a different [tree] species [could help] generate income and provide some insulation against risk of unforeseen climate events that might give us a lower yield of our maple syrup in any given year.”
Test results and opportunities ahead
The research project’s results, including overview of the production steps for a refrigerated pasteurized sap beverage, are available in the NNYADP’s “Developing Alternative Tree Sap Beverages” report. Cornell extension fact sheets for bottling tree saps are also in the works and will be available at cornellmaple.com.
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Moving forward, Adam Wild, current director of the Uihlein Maple Research Forest and who oversaw the sap collection for the project, says more producer education regarding the possibilities is necessary to further the adoption of aspen, birch and beech sap products throughout the Adirondacks.
“Historically, there’s not been a lot known about [tapping other trees]. It was even thought, such as with beech and aspen, that it wasn’t even possible to do it,” he said. “It’s a combination of not having the knowledge, knowhow or research. When I was first…looking into tapping beech trees, any of the information online said you couldn’t tap a beech tree and get sap from it. That’s just the information that was out there, so I think a lot of people went with it and didn’t try it.”
Consumer education is also key. Currently, the Maple Research Forest makes birch tree syrup and Wild calls it “a great seller.”
“It comes down to education that birch syrup is a very different product,” he said. “I like to compare it to a balsamic reduction. It’s more for cooking savory foods. Some people say they don’t like syrup, but this is a very different product.”
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Along those lines, he also noted that producers can use these saps to create a vast array of products that may appeal to different tastes. “Everyone can make their own product. It doesn’t have to be straight sap,” he said.
Farrell specifically sees the greatest potential in turning these alternative saps into syrup rather than beverages, though, pointing out that maple, with its ubiquity, may be a better fit for the sap-based beverage market. Then, producers could focus on turning sap from birch and similar species into syrup, as it will fetch a higher price than maple syrup.
“There’s been tremendous growth over the last 10 years,” he said. “I expect [the niche] to continue to grow. When we first started doing research and education on this 10 or 15 years ago, hardly anyone was doing it. Now there’s a lot of people making walnut syrup. There are more people doing birch syrup as well.”
Photo at top: These beech syrup samples were made during a 2022 NNYADP research project evaluating whether beech saplings would yield enough sap for profitable syrup production to potentially provide regional maple producers with another forest-based product. In 2024, a new NNYADP grant funded trials of producing sap beverages from beech, birch and aspen trees. Photo: Adam Wild
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