Canadians churn out close to 70% of the world's maple syrup. That's a lot of buckets nailed to a lot of Canadian maple trees. Americans are crazy for the stuff. According to the CBC, in 2024 alone, folks in the United States gobbled up $450 million worth of the stuff. Anyone who loves maple syrup knows that it doesn't come cheap. Collecting and processing tree blood is a labour-intensive practice. Add to this the cost of trucking it south across the border, and you've got yourself a premium product. Yeah, they produce the sticky stuff in the northeastern United States, too. But even the small amount collected in states like Vermont and New Hampshire needs to use specialized hardware made in Canada.
Just like hockey, maple syrup is a Canadian game.
Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, the price of maple syrup–along damn near everything else–has gone through the roof. If anything else were to happen to upset the supply chain or cost of doing business, say, America and Canada lobbing tariffs bombs at each other as part of a full-blown trade war, who knows how high the price could soar? It would transform maple syrup from a nice-to-have into an expensive luxury. That's when counterfeiters will start to work their magic. We're not talking about stuff that tastes kinda like maple syrup, made from high-fructose corn syrup, bullshit flavors and thickening agents. It's a totally different animal that any of us can pollute our bodies with, knowing it's bad for us and enjoy. We're talking about stuff pretending to be real maple syrup, made from beets, rice, and gawd knows what else. Who knows what it might do to you: it's bad for your body, bad for hard-working sugar shack workers and often sold for the same price as actual maple syrup. Not cool.
In an attempt to combat this fake syrup, researchers at the University of Guelph have been looking for ways to easily identify bona fide maple syrup. It's a Canadian solution to a Canadian problem.
…the University of Guelph's Corradini Lab explored how fluorescence fingerprints can be used to detect maple syrup adulteration. Fluorescence fingerprinting works by examining how internal molecules in maple syrup glow when exposed to UV and visible light. These unique, glowing fingerprints allow for the detection of markers or features that may be indicative of maple syrup fraud.
Our study explored the adulteration of amber and dark maple syrups, with common maple syrup adulterants—namely beet, corn and rice syrups—at values ranging from one to 50%.
We mapped unique and distinctive features in the fluorescence fingerprints, which were then used for differentiating pure from adulterated syrups. When exposed to UV and visible light, maple syrup features changed depending on the type—beet, corn or rice syrups—and amount of adulterant.
TLDR: using Predator vision, we can tell pure maple syrup from the fake stuff, with the help of A.I. and a whole lotta math.
The team at the University of Guelph, composed of Maleeka Singh, Prof. Maria G. Corradini and Prof. Robert Hanner, are doing God's work—provided you believe in a loving high power that wants us to have real maple syrup at a reasonable price. Detecting counterfeit syrups and removing them from the market should, in theory, help to put profits in the pockets of maple syrup producers, allowing them to keep the price of their product down, even during a trade war. Sweet.
