The reserve buys from producers though, right? If the reserve buys from producers during highly productive years, that prevents the price of syrup from falling too much. It seems to serve both producers and buyers.

It's a cartel. 95% of Canada's syrup comes from members of the Federation of Quebec Maple Syrup Producers. They manage the reserve, govern quality standards, and set the price. They also set strict quotas.

https://ppaq.ca/en/our-organization/operation-and-regulation...

Now I'm imagining submarines full of illicit maple syrup

You joke, but maple syrup smuggling is a thing . . . https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-35028380

Yes, it should work as a buffer against shocks.

which allows places like mcdonalds to use it as the price and supply is stable

No, it doesn't. Maple syrup is a minor luxury, easily substituted by other things like jam or honey. Consumers are better off with lower average syrup prices, not propped up by a government cartel, even if those prices have somewhat higher variance: when the price is high, people just substitute away and eat less maple syrup, no big deal. (It's not a necessity like air or water or housing.) If the variance is a big deal for various commercial players like IHOP, then they can just deal with producers directly or someone can set up a futures market, like everything else.

> Maple syrup is a minor luxury, easily substituted by other things like jam or honey.

Speaking as a Canadian, I suppose this is maybe technically true from an economic standpoint, but…we don’t even accept table syrup as a substitute, much less honey or jam.

(and I’ll bet IHOP serves table, not maple, syrup…)

As a New Englander, I would agree that jam is not a substitute for maple syrup, but it’s a valid choice if you’re feeling a fruity vibe.

It might be true for non-Canadian consumers of syrup. From my brief search, it looks like perhaps 70% of Canadian maple syrup is exported, so the tastes of non-Canadian consumers is quite important in this context.

Correct, except in Vermont.

As gwern said, maple syrup is a minor luxury. My household grew up with Aunt Jemima because the extra expense could not be justified. People here saying maple syrup cannot be substituted sound as pompous as saying they only drink XXO Cognac because regular brandy just won't do.

According to one random source online, a typical serving of syrup would be about 15mL per pancake, so perhaps 50mL for an average breakfast serving of three pancakes for an adult.

My local grocery store sells maple syrup for $1.90/100mL and table syrup for $0.60/100mL. This means that a serving of maple syrup would cost $0.95 and table syrup would cost $0.30, or a difference of $0.65 per person per meal.

As 'luxuries' go, we're not talking about large amounts of money here, even for a low income family, to afford. I grew up in a low income family, and we still used actual maple syrup growing up because the difference in quality is worth it.

An extra $0.50 per meal (less than what you are saying and not just for a topping) equates to an extra $500/year per person. Either you did not grow up as low income as you think you did or your family made sacrifices to keep maple syrup on the table. I knew many families that could not afford a new Xbox for their kids. You are literally saying that an Xbox per person per year is not a large amount of money for a low income family. I don't think we'll agree on that.

$500 per person per year divided by $0.50 per meal equals 1000 meals per year, which is almost every meal all year. Most people only eat pancakes for breakfast, and not anywhere near every day. What about a moderate rate like 2 maple syrup meals per week: then it's only $26 per person per year.

In order to make that argument you have to assume that someone eats pancakes every day. I assure you we did not.

There's a lot more happiness from going to 1.50$/meal from 1$/meal at every meal across an entire year than buying an XBox at the end of the year and not being able to afford games. Poor people know what it's like to have little money for food, that first jump is often a very high priority.

Where exactly peoples breaking points are varies, but you can be quite poor and still have some wiggle room. 1.50/meal vs buying used clothes is easy etc.

So sure it might be real maple syrup on the cheapest pancakes it's possible to make, but it's well worth it.

I mean, by your own numbers, maple syrup is more than 3 times the price of its competitor. I would also imagine the type of syrup is not high on the priority list when comparison shopping.

For what it's worth, my SO grew up in Texas and absolutely prefers the taste & consistency of table syrup over maple syrup for our use cases (pancakes & waffles). I suppose it's what he grew up with and that's what "syrup" is supposed to taste like to him.

My point is that the quantities that are consumed per serving are small and so it's the absolute costs that are more important than the relative difference.

Sure, but I think you have to consider how most people shop: if they see the bottle of maple syrup as 3 times the cost of its competitor, that's the comparison they see, especially if they have no strong emotional connection to maple syrup itself. Could they make the stretch if they wanted to? I'm sure they could, but I imagine there's a hundred other competing groceries that win out when the primary caretaker is grocery shopping. Should they opt for the name brand cereal or the store brand? Detergent? Juice? I don't think most of those grocery item comparisons are as stark as a three-fold difference, so I can appreciate that maple syrup may not make the cut for many people - even if the difference is not all that much in dollar terms.

Your analogy is flawed. Maple syrup is not to jam or honey as XXO Cognac is to regular brandy.

A better analogy is that maple syrup is to jam or honey as brandy is to beer.

Yeah — they have the same sort of fundamental purpose but if your recipe or drink calls for wine you probably don’t want to substitute beer or vice versa.

It can be somewhat substituted by “regular” (aka caramel) syrup although the taste of that is darker and has less depth due to the missing maple flavor.

Honey and especially jam are ridiculous examples for substitutes.

Maple syrup is not easily substituted by anything. Table syrup doesn't taste right, and the things you list cover completely different niches.

Those things are nothing like maple syrup. Can you imagine stirring a spoonful of jam into a coffee? Blech.

People stir syrup into coffee? In the US the only context in which I see people consume maple syrup is as a condiment for pancakes/waffles, and even in those situations I see many people deliberately avoid maple syrup and instead reach for table syrup (preferred taste & consistency).

It is in fact amazing in coffee.

1/2 maple syrup 1/2 whiskey - heated … is pretty good too :)

People responding and downvoting don't understand "substitute != same". For people downvoting this comment, go look at the canonical examples of substitutes. Margarine and butter. McDonald's and Burger King. These are all flamewar worthy different but considered substitutes nonetheless. In fact, it goes much further than this. A consumer craving chocolate might be willing to substitute ice cream if the price is too high. In this case, maple syrup and pancakes can very much be substituted with Canadian bacon and eggs. The whole point of microeconomics is to say that the market bearing price is dictated by utility curves and you can always ask consumers "would you rather have a barrel of maple syrup or a trip around the world" and that puts a fundamental cap on prices.

No, people downvoting and responding understand the true value of maple syrup and will not be insulted by someone who clearly was never cold to the bone after skiing and made some maple candy on snow /sarcastic - ish

I've been cold to the bone after skiing and I've made maple candy on snow on multiple occasions, but I'll confess, I've never done those consecutively. (Mostly because it would never have occurred to me to drag along a bottle of maple syrup on a ski trip.)

I would like to register my offence