PLANNING FOR THE FUTURE (The Maple Syrup Company)

The Maple Syrup Company has set out its direction for the next five years within this business plan. This does not mean, however, that we are not looking to the future after the five years. The planning for the future will commence as soon as The Maple Syrup Company starts to process its initial sap.

We want to stick to our mandate of: a) Establishing a viable maple syrup industry in Smith Island. and b) Retaining and further developing maple sugar bushes in Smith Island.

We acknowledge that there are an ample number of sugar maple trees in a relatively close proximity to our facility. We further recognize that it would not be practical for our organization, in the immediate future, to grow this industry without additional financial and personnel assistance. Thus, we will promote and solicit additional producers to this industry.

We feel we can promote the maple syrup industry to other individuals that have either a maple stand and/or the desire and financial resources to get into this industry. We will provide guidance to potential producers.

We also anticipate that there will be individuals that would like to collect sap but will have little, if any, desire to process sap at their own facility. This can be attributable to the extensive capital needed to enter the industry. We will enter into agreements with such individuals whereby we will either purchase their bulk sap at market prices or process their sap at our facility for a fee. This will be evaluated on a case by case scenario. It will also be based upon our available excess capacity at any point in time.

We intend to have someone or an organization in Smith Island get involved in the sales and distribution of related maple syrup equipment and supplies. This will result in the required equipment and supplies being readily available for interested buyers. The result: Trained professionals will be available in Smith Island to provide expertise on the equipment and will also aid the maple syrup producers by having immediate access to supplies and replacement equipment on a timely basis.

In the future, we intend to expand products lines to include such items as maple candies and maple butter. This will require research and it will result in hiring additional people to process and market other refined products. This option will be taken very seriously since higher profit margins can be recognized through refined maple products.

We will concentrate on shifting our sales mix away from bulk sales in order to secure the higher profit margins on such products. We will evaluate the shift well before the five years period, however, we must ensure that we provide top quality products to our customers both now and in the future. In order to do so, we want to limit our product mix at present. Once we have confidence in providing top quality products and our customers are confident in our products, we will solicit our present customers along with new customers to determine if they are interested in expanding their products lines. Our future product growth will be driven by market supply and demand.

Our future will have expanded market segments. We will have at least one full time person penetrating new markets and customers. We would like to be instrumental in establishing a strong The Maple Syrup Association.