Maple syrup's back-to-back banner years

The observation

2026-07-09

Canadian producers harvested 18.9 million gallons of maple syrup in 2025 — down 5.1% from 2024's all-time record, and still the second-highest production year on record. Quebec accounted for 90.0% of national production, at 17.0 million gallons.

OFFICIAL Statistics Canada — Maple products, 2025 (The Daily, December 2025)

Possible explanations

One reading: two exceptional sugaring seasons in a row — production swings hard with late-winter weather, and back-to-back banner years read first as favourable tapping windows.

Another: capacity rather than weather — producers have been adding taps for years, so record output may mark a larger industry more than a luckier season.

Named confounder: Year-over-year swings in maple output are weather-dominated, and a pair of strong years is far too short a run to read as a trend in either direction.

What would settle it

A longer run of the same annual table (Statistics Canada's production and value of maple products, updated each December), read alongside tap counts and the Quebec producers' organization's published reserve stocks — reserve movements would separate the weather story from the capacity story.

Sources — the Signals register (1)

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OFFICIALStatistics Canada

Maple products, 2025 (The Daily, December 2025)

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