Maple Syrup Industry

845,000 gallons of maple syrup were produced in 2021 in New York, making it the 2nd largest producer of maple syrup in the US. Maple syrup is produced by extracting sap from maple trees in specific weather conditions and boiling it down to a sticky and sweet syrup.

Maple Syrup’s Sticky Situation

However, 1 in every 20 gallons of syrup produced are wasted each year due to buddy or ropy syrup, which wastes energy and causes loss in profits for producers.Buddy syrup is caused by metabolic changes in the sap, and results in cabbage-like taste and odor unsuitable for human consumption. Ropy syrup occurs due to bacterial contamination during sap and syrup processing, making it unsellable as well. After talking to stakeholders, we learned that they were very interested in a simple way to measure invert sugar levels. The current solution to determine invert sugar level is tricky for producers to perform because it requires highly precise dilution steps.

Our Sweet Solution

Our solution, which involves detecting defect, repurposing defected syrup, and developing a highly sensitive glucometer, was made with the consumers in mind for every step of the process.