For much of the twentieth century maple syrup was packaged for sale and shipment in metal containers. The first half of the century was witness to maple producers pasting paper labels onto bare metal gallon, half-gallon, and quart-sized tins. But by the mid-point of the century a new, more attractive and colorful option came onto the market.
Color lithographed square tins with maple sugaring scenes were first introduced for individual maple producers in Vermont for the 1948 season’s crop. Sugarmaker S. Allen Soule of Fairfield, Vermont developed the cans in 1947 after seeing olive oil sold in gallon size square tins with colorful graphics on the exterior, known as double O tins in the can industry.
In a March 2019 interview with S. Allen Soule’s son, John Soule shared that his father contacted the Empire Can Company in Brooklyn, New York and asked if they could make a can similar to the double O can, but for maple syrup. Empire Can said they could, and S. Allen Soule and his wife Betty worked with a New England artist to design the exterior featuring a sugaring scene on the two larger faces of the can and a short history of maple syrup and a few maple recipes on the side panels. The front panel read “Pure Vermont Maple Syrup” and initially included a blank white rectangle where the individual maple syrup producer could stamp their name and address.
Of course, you could order a stamp with your sugarbush name from S. Allen Soule to go with your order of empty cans. A few years later the blank white rectangle was replaced with a more attractive blank blue oval. The initial cans were made in one gallon, a half-gallon and one-quart sizes with the focus on pushing the smaller quart size can as a more attractive size for tourists and more distant markets in the urban areas.
It should be noted that S. Allen Soule and his can and syrup packing and selling operation (later named Fairfield Farm) was not the same company as the George H. Soule evaporator and maple sugaring equipment company. George H. Soule and S. Allen Soule were cousins and both from the Fairfield area, but they were distinctly different families and businesses, despite the similar names and even the later reuse of the Fairfield Farms name by S. Allen Soule in the 1960s following the closing of G.H. Soule’s Fairfield Farms in the 1950s.
Following the success of S. Allen Soule’s introduction of the lithographed square tin, the Empire Can Company got into the business of directly marketing and selling color lithographed tins to maple producers in the mid-1950s, albeit with a different and even more generic design and label, to appeal to maple producers in states outside of Vermont. According to S. Allen Soule’s son, Empire Can’s entry in the can market as a seller and not just as a can maker was to the surprise of S. Allen Soule who was working under the belief that he had an exclusive arrangement with Empire Can Company.
Empire Can’s entry in to the maple syrup can market was soon followed by the appearance of additional stock color lithographed square cans from the Stern Can Company of Boston, Massachusetts in the later 1950s and the Eastern Can Company of Passaic, New Jersey in the early 1960s. Maple producers had the options of buying totally generic tins or buying tins with labels of Pure Maple Syrup with their respective state names. States with specific cans printed with their names generally included Vermont, New York, Maine, New Hampshire, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin.
By the early 1970s production of stock square cans for the maple syrup industry had fallen off and it was becoming increasingly difficult to purchase square color lithographed cans in the United States. The Empire Can Company was the last large volume can producer and was not producing enough cans to meet industry needs. In addition, new production methods were resulting in more and more defective cans. Concerns about can availability worsened when the Empire Can Company announced it was getting out of the maple syrup can business in 1978.
In response, the Leader Evaporator Company formed Maple Country Can Company and in a controversial move, secured a public loan in combination with private financing to purchase and move the Empire Can Company equipment to a new facility under construction in St. Albans, Vermont. Maple Country Can Co. was a short-lived venture and closed its doors a few years later in 1980, selling its canning equipment to the New England Container Company in Swanton, Vermont.
Packaging maple syrup metal cans, including a reintroduction of the log cabin shaped can, continues to this day but the introduction of plastic containers in 1970 and the greater use of smaller and fancy glass containers in a wide range of shapes and sizes has pushed packaging in metal cans to the background.
In Quebec, a generic color lithographed can was introduced for maple syrup makers in the early 1950s. Moving away from the industry standard of a plain square metal can with glued on paper labels, the Quebec Ministry of Agriculture held a design competition in 1951 asking for submissions with a maple sugaring scene to illustrate their new 26 ounce round cans. According to one telling of this history, it is not exactly clear what was the initial winning design or if there was more than one design chosen, and unfortunately the name of the wining artist has yet to be discovered.
Over time, the design of the standard stock round can for maple syrup in Quebec has evolved and the design has changed. Unlike in the U.S., in Quebec square tins became less common. With the assistance of the Ministry of Agriculture and the support of the Quebec Maple Producers Federation, round tins became the norm and are now something of an iconic symbol of the Quebec maple industry.
Although Quebec has embraced the round can, they were not the first to use if for packaging maple syrup. Maple King, George C. Cary was canning pure maple syrup in round, soup can-sized tins with color lithographed exteriors as early as 1923. Before Cary’s use of a round lithographed can, the Towle’s Log Cabin syrup company was canning blended maple and cane syrup starting in the late 19-teens. The Towle’s Log Cabin company color lithographed cans initially were limited to the Log Cabin Brand in its colorful cabin shaped tins with interesting scenes printed on all sides. In the early 1920s, The Towle’s company also began marketing Wigwam brand blended maple and cane syrup in a unique wedge shaped color lithographed can.