My name is Luke LaTocha, I am a 16-year-old entrepreneur who has a vision of running my own large maple syrup business.  The entire operation became a business purely by coincidence.  It was originally a family hobby that evolved into a way for my father to teach me how to run a small business and to help me save for college.  I have processed and bottled maple syrup for the past six years with my parents.

The first year I made maple syrup was with my family out at a small woodlot at Larks Lake.  We originally started with old metal taps that we gathered at a yard sale, and recycled gallon milk jugs.  We had about 20 trees tapped at the time.  That year we made enough syrup for our family and a few friends.  Everything I know regarding maple syrup I have learned from my father and grandfather.

We spend a lot of time planning for the second year.  The first plan in mind was to order a new and bigger pan for boiling the sap.  My father and I ordered the Pan from a company in Canada but it arrived late sending us into a mad rush to get a stove built.  My father and I spent a couple evenings researching stove designs online and drafting several designs of our own.  We ordered quarter inch plate steel from a local company in Grayling Michigan.  The next 10 days were spent welding a stove together in the garage.  We were extremely lucky that the sap run had held off just in time for us to walk the stove out and pour the first sap of the season into the pan.  Our second year we tapped about 35 trees at the Larks Lake woodlot producing more than the year before allowing us to give more out to our friends and family.  We transitioned to 5 gallon buckets with plastic taps and tubing.  We were clueless to there being other taps designs than the classic metal taps we had used the previous year, so we used pluming fittings that we threaded into the tap hole with a socket ratchet.

Our third year was an interesting one.  My parents and I were on a vacation in Key West before the sap run.  Dad and I were watching the temperatures in Mackinaw City as the temperatures were rising.  We drove non-stop 33hours from Key West in time to get home go to bed and get up around 9am the next morning to go and tap trees.  Many of our friends that make maple syrup decided to wait on tapping their trees.  The run turned out to last only 10 days long and our friends missed the run that year.  It was in this year the idea of a maple syrup business took off.  We made more syrup than we knew what to do with.  This was the year that my Dad suggested that we turn the small maple syrup operation into a business centered around paying for my college fund.  We expanded the number of taps to 56.  We found we had a surplus of syrup that couldn’t all be given to family and friends so I sold it at my dad’s Dental Office.  My dad ordered a few cases of “flask” shaped bottles and log cabin shaped tins that we used to bottle our syrup in that year.  We sold these bottles for $10 each and my business was off to a start.

Up until now we had done everything out at our small woodlot at Larks Lake but, in 2014 gas prices became too high to make it profitable.  This was the year we decided to move the operation to our family owned property in Mackinaw City, where my parents and I live.  My Father and I scouted the property for maple trees along side our normal trails.  We saw potential for business growth. In planning for this year we built a sleigh for holding buckets and a platform on back for one or two people to stand on.  That year we tapped about 78 trees.  We produced about 12 gallons of syrup.  We used 4-wheelers and the sleigh that my dad and I built to gather sap.  I found out about a fall harvest festival in Brutus Michigan and I decided to try to sell my syrup there.  By the end of the day I found I had made about $285.00.

2015 was the first year we tapped over a hundred trees.We tapped exactly 125 trees, yielding about 18 gallons of syrup. That year my dad and I welded a trailer capable of holding almost enough wood to keep our evaporator stove running all throughout maple syrup season.

We started strategic planning for next year while the 2015 season was underway.  We went through the property on snowshoes putting yellow tags on all the maple trees to make our whole operation more streamline.  We also decided to select cut our property to make our maple trees prosper.  The loggers made many skidder trails which we are now turning into roads.  My father and I have been diligently cleaning up the sugar bush, and have picked up about 15 pulp cord of wood.  This will make gathering syrup less cumbersome and more efficient.  The wood will be staged for boiling as well as any excess sold for additional investment in equipment.  I knew that in order to expand; we needed more 5 gallon buckets so I went around to local restaurants in Mackinaw City and Alanson and begged them for buckets.  I also created my first account in Mackinaw City allowing me to sell more product.

• I sell My maple syrup (500ml bottle) for $10, I made 12 cases of syrup in 2015.  Each case holds 12 bottles 12x12=144x10=1,440

• 2016 was our sixth year, we doubled production, we went from 125 taps to 235 taps and we produced about 35 gallons of syrup.  This year we realized we had outgrown our small evaporator.  We were collecting too much sap to boil down before the sap had begun roping (fermenting due to the natural bacteria it contains).  My conclusion for this season was that we had met capacity for the equipment and technology that we were currently utilizing.  At this point I started researching reverse osmosis.

• CDL

  • My parents and I met with a representative, Derek Ross, from a nearby maple syrup company in Rudyard, CDL.  I knew about CDL because I had been purchasing bottles and taps from them for the past two years.  Derek came to our home and my parents and I talked with him for 2 hours about reverse osmosis.  I was considering RO, but at a cost of $7,800, It seemed financially out of reach.  About 6 weeks later the price came down because of the Canadian exchange rate to the dollar.  The machine’s price was now financially in reach.  I still felt that $4,800 was a lot of money, so I sat down with my uncle and my father and we discussed in detail that if I doubled production for the next 2 years the machine would be paid off.  At this point I chose to spend the money to allow for the growth of my business.  Since the purchase my father and I have been prepping a room for the machine to operate in.

  • While staging syrup for one of my commercial accounts, I realized there was sediment resting at the bottom of the bottles.  This had occurred with about 4 cases of my syrup.  The way I had filtered these cases and all previous cases was with a filter box I purchased from Leader Evaporator.  A filter box is a metal box meant to hold two wool filters.  The filter box is very dangerous, as you have to dump 3-gallon pots full of near boiling syrup into these filters.  The risk of being burnt is high, and reprocessing is a tremendous waste in caps, syrup and time.  My father contacted CDL and asked about a small filter press.  They had a large used filter press for $100 less than the smaller model was priced.  Derek was kind enough to bring the filter press to our home for a demonstration.  The machine is designed to push the hot syrup through a series of filter pads therefore keeping all the sand out.  I then decided to purchase the machine to increase the safety and efficiency for us, and the quality of my syrup for my customers.  While he was demoing the filter press he helped us design a room for our reverse osmosis system.

  • While Derek was at our house helping reprocess this syrup, we asked him a few questions about a gravity fed line system for collecting sap known as mainline.  Mainline is a series of tubing connected to maple trees on a slope that runs into a central collection point.  He then cordially extended us an invite to Rudyard for a tour of his sugar bush.

  • My father and I took a trip across the bridge to the U.P. to visit the Michigan maple syrup giant, CDL.  We met with Derrick and he gave us about a 4-hour tour around their sugar bush.  He showed us how his mainline and vacuum systems work.  We decided to buy a 500ft long roll of food grade mainline to begin rigging at a steep spot at our property.  The area we are currently setting up mainline is a steep hill where we used to haul buckets.  The risk of breaking an ankle while carrying two full 5-gallon buckets is very high.  Now with the gravity fed mainline running into a central collection point it will make gathering the sap much easier and safer.  We learned the plastic barrels we were using to hold sap are more susceptible to housing bacteria thus causing the sap to lose its sugar content.  We decided to put a $300 down payment on two large stainless steel storage vats for our reverse osmosis system.  The total cost of the two vats is about $2,600. My father could easily loan me the money but he feels working hard outside the maple syrup business to earn that money teaches good work ethic and responsibility.  To earn money to pay for the vats my father and I haul loads of scrap metal to a metal recycling plant; I cut and stack piles of wood to sell later on in the winter.  On top of that I cut lumber on our sawmill to sell to local carpenters. I sell cedar posts for fencing.  I sell some outdated equipment from my father’s dental office and items we have collected over time on eBay.  Before we left Derek gave us a great tip that was worth the trip alone.  He explained that when tapping a tree that you have tapped before there is a pattern that will yield more sap.

• Honey

  • Along with my Maple syrup business I have a honey business that I run with the help of my dad.  Beekeeping in our family started with my great Aunt Betty who passed it down to my father and his cousin.  I started selling honey the same year I had started selling syrup.  All profits from the Honey Sales go toward my college fund.  Every year around a specific time I mow our fields so the wildflower crop can reseed.  This year we had a loss as a bear attacked two of our 3 hives and the other fell because of colony collapse disorder.  The previous year we had six hives, two of which fell to colony collapse disorder and the other four weren’t able to survive the harsh winter.  I recently traveled to a friend of mine’s house.  He had just begun beekeeping I offered my knowledge to help mentor him.

• As mentioned earlier, my grandfather has passed down a huge amount of knowledge down to my father and I but since then he has been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease.  He still enjoys working with me around maple syrup season.  He is unable to drive a car but we still enjoy watching him drive the 4 wheelers.  He may not have the memory he once did, but I’m still making memories of him and with him that I’ll treasure long after his passing.

• Energy efficiency

  • Over 60% of our power runs on solar and wind. In the fall of 2010 we installed 26 solar panels on the roof of one of our barns.  Two years later we had a wind turbine installed and business platform builds upon my parent’s commitment to green energy, renewable resources, and sustainability.  The changes made for future growth of business provide efficiency and productivity, which are key to my business success.  Green energy and renewable resources reinforce a business platform that is seen as responsible in our current period in time.

I realize that this document on the historical perspective of my business was very detailed and lengthy but I wanted to be thorough.  My business is running into a bottleneck so to speak.  I have solved this year issues with the investments I have made to date, however I for see the need for a larger evaporator will probably come by the time that the 2017 season is underway.  The forest management that I have facilitated over the past summer has opened up many more trees to tap, and I feel that this opportunity will almost certainly require and upgrade in the form of a larger evaporator to improve my efficiency.  My goal for this business do not stop there, I have in mind the plan to double the number of trees/taps twice over the next three year.  To date I have 5 commercial retail accounts that I supply.  Opportunities have presented that will allow for sale of the additional syrup produced from the above referenced expansions.  The obvious dilemma I have run into now is that if I’m truly going to set money aside for a college education I cannot continue to spend the kind of money I have spent to increase production/efficiency.  The reason for this lengthy story is to share my experience with you and demonstrate my business potential.  I feel that if I could obtain financial support in the form of a grant it would most certainly help me grow to see my vision come to fruition.  The purpose of this document is to see if the is any grant money available through the USDA or any other governmental agency.