CUMBERLAND (WKOW) — Maple forests are only found in the northeast quarter of North America. Maple trees only thrive in a specific region from New England to Minnesota and the Canadian provinces that border those states.
“We’ve just kind of continued to grow. At our peak production we were tapping 18,000 trees,” Steve Anderson, Owner of Anderson’s Maple Syrup said.
The company was established in 1928 and its products are in grocery stores around the country. The best part about this third generation company is that it’s made in northern Wisconsin.
“We are now in close to nine thousand grocery stores around the United States. We have some overseas customers,” Anderson said.
“Our bottles all say made in the USA on them, and that’s something to give us an edge over our Canadian counterparts.”
One reason this syrup is so popular is the company’s commitment to quality. If maple syrup is stored for more than 48 hours it starts to spoil. So they boil it into syrup as soon as it’s gathered from the tree. Prior to sale it goes through one final process.
“Just before we bottle it, we boil it again,” Anderson said.
“That does a couple of things for us. It’s a purity thing, but it also that fresh flavor that is there the first couple of months after syrup is made. It kind of fades with time. But by re-boiling, we bring some of that back. And that extra heat, that extra boiling, that extra time that we take, locks in a freshness into our bottles that very few other people do get.”
In Wisconsin, March is a prime month for tapping sugar maple trees, when the sap is sweetest. Generally the Maple syrup is harvested and made within a short three-month window from February to April.
“Knowing our name’s on the bottle, we want to make sure that people are getting something that we can be, you know, glad to have on our own pancakes that we would think was the best,” Anderson said.
