Why is everything messing with our beloved breakfast foods?
First, it was the skyrocketing price of eggs that hit record highs since they started going up by late 2022. Now it may be another breakfast staple that could be impacted: maple syrup.
While egg prices can partly be attributed to scores of bird flu cases that swept across the U.S., there's a very different natural phenomenon impacting maple syrup production. The warm, mild winter many have been enjoying is actually not good for maple farms.
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New York is second only to Vermont in maple syrup production, and February is typically harvest time. At White Oak Farm in Yorktown, the southernmost commercial maple syrup farm in the state, the unseasonably warm weather (which saw temperatures reach the 60s on Friday) is pouring cold water on their production.
"As soon as we see the tree budding out and flowering, that's a sign to us that the maple season is over," said owner Bri Hart, who has run the farm for 40 years.
He said that his 2,400 trees need freezing temperatures overnight to tap into stored sugars. But that's not been happening nearly as often as usual — meaning that the maple syrup season that typically lasts several weeks won't get anywhere close to that.
"If we only have a three- or four-day season or a week, two weeks, we might cut that in half," Hart said.
It takes 80 gallons of sap to make some of the larger bottles produced on the farm. So as the taps run dry, could prices go up?
"It's a little too early to say right now," Hart said.
Producers in Upstate New York and Vermont started production early, hoping to have enough supply on shelves and celebrate "Maple Weekend" at the end of March.
The farm is hoping Mother Nature will cooperate over the next few weeks in order to get as much syrup from the trees as possible, so the festival is a success.
