Farm to Table with Vermont Maple Syrup

The new “Farm to Table” or “Agritourism” concept is a way of buying food and cooking that we’re familiar with in Vermont. Using the bounty of food products produced in the state is a smart and delicious way to cook. CSA’s are very popular and farmers markets are open around the state. Grass-fed beef and pork are becoming more available and cheese is another product that Vermont farmers are producing in addition to milk.

Maple syrup is considered Vermont’s first agricultural harvest of the year and is still considered “seed money” for farmers who use the sale of their maple products to purchase seeds to plant when the weather warms up and to help keep their farms going, not an easy thing these days. The production of maple syrup is a sustainable activity and one which keeps the beautiful maple trees in our state—the sugar maple is the most numerous in Vermont forests and approximately 25% of the trees in Vermont are sugar maples. In addition to providing the sap to make maple syrup they also help to provide the glorious fall foliage around the state.

Vermont maple syrup is 100% natural and, by Vermont law, contains only sap boiled down into syrup. Maple syrup is also cooked further to make maple sugar and maple cream and used as an ingredient in other maple products including salad dressings, barbecue sauce, maple seasonings, maple candy and many more delicious products.

If you’re planning a visit to Vermont and would like to include a trip to one or more maple “sugarhouses”, simply go to our Sugarhouses Open Year Round page to find a list of maple syrup producers who are open to the public all year. The best time to visit sugarhouses is during maple syrup season, which can begin as early as January and go as late as early April. But if you plan a trip to Vermont another time of year you can still visit a sugarhouse and learn about how syrup is produced.

If you aren’t planning a trip to Vermont you can purchase syrup and other maple products by visiting the Buy Maple section of this website.