On October 19, 2026, Luc Goulet, president of the Producteurs et Productrices Aércoles du Québec (PPAQ), assembled the press and uttered eight words to the Canadian media: “Our strategic reserve (syrup) has gone to zero.” I know that a strategic syrup reserve sounds like a joke, but it makes so much sense that what Goulet explains is a huge problem.
Canada produces more than three-quarters of the world’s syrup, and Quebec leaves nine out of 10 liters. In fact, there, the sector’s 8,400 companies operate as a cartel that jointly distributes and sells products. That strategic reserve is the “link” to olive oil: the reserve mechanism that helps control prices.
That has gone to zero. And, conversely, it has been a success.
Syrup OPEC. The process is simple: what is not sold for a year is pasteurized and stored. The manufacturers themselves pay for it with their own remuneration. The reserve was created in 2000 because syrup collection depends on certain weather conditions like everything else. In some years there was a possibility that there would not be enough syrup for everyone.
This happened, in fact, in 2008. And, in 2012, a strange theft of nearly 10,000 barrels was discovered at the Saint-Louis-de-Blandford warehouse. But that’s another story (which has a series and everything).
So what happened now? Why is it a success? First, it happened that the demand increased a lot. Agency sales have grown from £52.9 million in 2002 to £202 million in 2025. This means that, although production has increased (for example, 2026, the second best in history), they do not have enough syrup.
Above all, for two things: Fears of tariffs that Trump might eventually introduce and the fact that the price deal was going through its final year in 2026 and (because of that) buyers were hoarding everything on the prospect of them being revised upwards.
What happened was that all the syrup stopped being stored in Quebec and was stored in the warehouses of buyers and their American clients. Processors have also increased their stocks due to the possibility of unavailability of syrup in the market.
So, according to PPAQ data, the last barrels will leave the system in February. The problem is that the harvest usually doesn’t start until March and no one is quite sure how it will go (it mainly depends on the weather conditions in winter and spring).
The world is in danger of facing a 2027 that is a little less sweet than usual.
And why should we care about all this? First, because having a strategic reserve of syrup is a fun thing (however understandable) and second, because this stress “test” of the PPAQ system is a good laboratory for new management for our “maple syrup”, olive oil.
Climate change is affecting us all. No idea is too much.
Picture | Patrick Tommaso
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