Ben Fisk’s blood may as well run amber. The fifth generation maple syrup producer first visited a sugar house on a preschool field trip and told his dad, who stopped tapping trees before Ben was born. He and his dad tapped 15 trees in their yard that year using his grandparent’s sap buckets, and the next year his dad built him a sugar house and bought him an evaporator to boil sap.
At 15, he started Ben’s Sugar Shack and the next year won the Carlisle Trophy for the best maple syrup in NH, the top award from the NH Maple Producers Association. Now 26, Fisk runs a company with 11 employees and plans to produce 9,000 gallons of maple syrup in 2015, almost double the 5,000 he produced and sold nationally in 3,000 stores including Hannaford, Price Chopper, Amazon.com and TJ Maxx in 2014.
“It’s what I love to do,” Fisk says of his success as a self-made entrepreneur. He says he bypassed college and taught himself to run the business. “I started by knocking on doors and asking people if they had any interest in selling my maple syrup.” They did. With more than 22,000 taps around Temple, sometimes two to a tree, revenue has grown 50 percent each of the last five years except 2014, when it only grew 35 percent while the company focused on new growth areas.
In 2013 Fisk purchased 15 acres in Temple on Route 101. He plans to build a large sugarhouse and gift shop as his current operation off 101 is tight and tours interrupt operations. Last summer he built a farm stand and grew vegetables, which he now sells along with his maple syrup and related products, which include maple candy, maple coffee, maple cotton candy and maple barbecue sauce. Most of his business, 60 percent, is wholesale and he’s hopeful the Route 101 farmstand location will grow retail sales.
Fisk is also revamping his sugar house tours and charging a fee. Tours are an important part of the business as teaching folks about the product and giving samples builds a strong base of loyal customers. “They remember who you are when they are in the grocery store buying stuff,” he says.
Last year Ben’s Sugar Shack had about 2,000 visitors per weekend for its tours, which run about one and half hours and include viewing the bottling line and where they make maple candy, a hay ride to see the taps on the trees and seeing the syrup production process. He charges $5 per adult, $3 for teenagers and kids under 12 are free.
Fisk is also adding new products this spring, including blueberry pancake mix, and new accounts. He recently sealed a deal for his maple products to be sold at Cost Plus World Market, a home décor and gift store with 270 stores in California. And he is also revamping his website, including a section targeting brides seeking wedding favors. “I think there is a huge market there.”
For more information, visit bens-maple-syrup.com.
Maple Syrup Facts!
Number of maple syrup producers: 107
Production in 2014: 112,000 gallons
Cold temperatures led to a shorter season of sap flow in 2014. In NH, the season lasted 30 days in 2014, down from 38 in 2013. Maple syrup production was valued at $6.62 million in NH in 2013
Sales by Type (2013): Retail: 50% Wholesale: 25% Bulk: 25%
U.S. Maple Prod. (2014): 3,167,000 gallons
Vermont: 42%
Maine: 17%
New York: 17%
Wisconsin: 6%
Pennsylvania: 5%
New Hampshire: 4%
Ohio: 4%
Other (Michigan, Massachusetts, Connecticut): 5%
Sources: U.S. Department of Agriculture, NH Maple Producers Association