Maple Syrup History

By Matthew M. Thomas

Packaging maple syrup in plastic jugs is now commonplace and jugs are the primary container for retail sales. However, sixty years ago there were no plastic jugs and syrup was either packaged in metal or glass containers. When first introduced to the maple industry, plastic was modern and novel, but it was also an untried and unproven material. In time, the industry found what types of plastic worked best and settled on the familiar shape of a jug with a handle for its plastic containers. In getting to that point there were a few earlier, less well-known attempts at bottling syrup in plastic containers. Prior to the introduction of the jug shape there were a few other examples of plastic maple syrup containers.

The unique and instantly recognizable shape of the modern plastic maple syrup container got its start in the early 1970s when a pair of New England inventors and their companies introduced a new container made from a stiff, unbreakable plastic that could handle the requirements of hot-packed syrup and hold up to the rigors of shipping and transport.

Following the introduction of plastic jugs and increasing popularity of using plastic containers for packaging maple syrup in the 1970s, a group of new manufacturers entered the picture to meet the growing demand. It was during the decade of the 1980s that the plastic syrup jugs most commonly used by syrup makers today got their start, as well as some other manufacturers that operated on a smaller scale or for a limited duration.

1960s

Harry Chapman

The earliest example of bottling with plastic containers was the efforts of sugarmaker Harry Chapman of South Wallingford, Vermont. In 1959 while still an engineering student at the University of Vermont, Harry began experimenting with different available plastic containers and settled on a polypropylene tubular squeeze bottle used for condiments and by the honey industry. In an interview with Harry, he shared that starting in 1962 he purchased bottles from an Albany, NY wholesaler in half pint, full pint, and quart sizes, and added a two-color, yellow and dark green, label on the clear containers using a silk screen set-up he built himself. Beside bottling syrup from the Chapman family sugarbush in the squeeze bottles, for a couple of years, Harry drove around Vermont selling the bottles to other syrup makers with roadside syrup stands and made numerous presentations promoting the use of this new technology and container.

 

Vermont Maple Orchards – Frank Rees

Beginning in the spring of 1962, Vermont Maple Orchards of Essex Junction, Vermont began selling syrup packaged in a miniature plastic sugarhouse. This container was about a half pint in size and made from clear plastic with a pour spout fashioned to look like the smoke stack of the sugarhouse. The company promoted the benefits of plastic as being unbreakable and free from the threat of rusting. Frank Rees, General Manager of Vermont Maple Orchards at that time, was a chemist by training and was a part of the research in the 1930s to identify the sources of lead in maple syrup. As a result, he was sensitive to potential risks of solder leaching from metal cans into syrup and quickly embraced the potential of plastic as a packaging material. Tom Rees, the son of Frank Rees, recalls that the plastic sugarhouse was not a successful item and only sold for a couple of years, in part because the plastic used at that time, probably polypropylene, was not suited to the hot packing of maple syrup and soon after became brittle and hard. In fact, in a August 1962 letter from Malvine Cole, a spokesperson for Vermont Maple Orchards, to Frank Rees, she noted that when left in the hot sun in her car for a few hours, the plastic appeared to have softened and leaked syrup. Little is known about these plastic sugarhouses, such as where and how they were manufactured or who designed them. Their novelty at the time and short lifespan has made them a rarity and essentially unknown among collectors of vintage maple syrup containers.

 

Robert Bramhall and Robert M. Lamb

A third early plastic container was introduced in 1965 by Robert “Bob” Bramhall, Sr., the woodlands manager for the J.P. Lewis Company (JPL) working out of Beaver Falls, NY. Bramhall, who supervised JPL’s maple sugaring operation began experimenting in 1963 with the idea of bottling in plastic before settling on a square shaped container with a maple leaf design embossed on the side. Bramhall worked with the American Plastics Corporation in nearby Bainbridge, NY to manufacture the opaque cream and peach-colored containers. In the first year he had 50,000 pint-sized containers made with a quart size added the following year. According to Butch Bramhall, Bob Bramhall’s son, one of the reasons Bob looked at plastic was the shortage in the availability of metal syrup cans in the early 1960s.

Bob’s daughter-in-law Pat Bramhall added that Bob wanted to have a container that was smaller and easier for housewives to handle and use than the large half and full gallon tins that were most common at that time. After offering the containers for sale for about one year, in 1966 Bramhall transferred the sales of the containers to Robert M. Lamb’s growing plastic tubing and sugaring supplies company in Baldwinsville, NY. Lamb continued to advertise the container for sale through the end of 1969 when they were replaced by the new plastic syrup jugs coming out on the market.

1970s

Kress Creations – Elmer Kress

Elmer Kress got his start as a potter when he opened Kress Ceramics in Seymour, Connecticut in the 1950s. According to his daughter Sarah Jean Davies, Elmer developed health problems related to exposure to ceramic dust and needed to make a change in his business. He sold the pottery business in 1967 and decided to give the manufacturing of plastic maple syrup containers a try under the name Kress Creations.

Kress had previously dabbled with producing small, novelty size stoneware jugs for maple syrup sales, so he had a familiarity and design idea in mind that resembled an antique loop handled stoneware jug.

Kress invested in his own blow molding equipment and made his containers from a new plastic called XT Polymer developed by the American Cyanamid Corporation out of Wallingford, Connecticut.

XT Polymer was chosen by Kress because it could handle the hot packing of syrup. Kress jugs also featured a metal tamper-proof cap made by the ALCOA Company. Kress’ daughter tells that her father did not want his jug to look like cheap plastic, so he specifically used a heavier, glossier plastic that looked more like ceramic.  XT polymer was more expensive, but Elmer felt it looked nicer. As an artist, Elmer Kress drew his own designs for the exterior sugarbush scene and did the one-color screen printing on site at the Kress Creations factory.

 

Kress jugs were originally released in early 1970 in pint and quart sizes, with half gallon and a unique three-quart sizes added later. The company outgrew the plant in Seymour and moved to a new facility in Oxford, Connecticut in 1975. The Kress operation was a true mom and pop business with the Kress family often taking weekend road trips around New England to peddle their containers out of the back of their car. Kress sold the plastic jug company in 1990 to a Southbury, New Hampshire firm, who in turn sold the molds to Pioneer Plastics in Greenville, New Hampshire who continued to manufacture and sell the Kress jug until around 2005. Elmer Kress passed away in 2005.

 

Bacon’s Sugar House – Charlie Bacon

As a syrup maker from Jaffney Center, New Hampshire, Charles “Charlie” Bacon was dissatisfied with metal syrup cans bursting when he shipped syrup across the country. Deciding plastics would be a better option, around 1967 he began researching food grade plastics that could handle hot packing of syrup. According to Bacon’s son, Jim Bacon, Charlie settled on high density polyethylene as the best option and, working from a simple sketch, had a wood form made in the shape of an old-fashioned crockery jug which was then made into a durable metal form for blow-molding by Hillside Plastics in Sunderland, Massachusetts. Early examples of Bacon jugs featured a metal cap with an interior heat activated seal.

The first Bacon jug was available for sale in early 1971 in a one-quart size followed by a half gallon and a pint a few months later, and lastly, a one-gallon jug in 1973. Jugs were screen printed and distributed from the Bacon farm. Eventually, they were available in five sizes with either a standard one-color screen-printed design or option to do custom designs. Adoption of Bacon jugs spread quickly with the assistance of a network of dealers located around the maple region to more directly connect with nearby syrup producers. By 1980, Bacon was manufacturing a million jugs a year. Jim Bacon shared that his father never obtained a design patent on his jugs. Although he considered it, Bacon realized that it was not worth the expense of filing the patent paperwork since another maker could come along with a slightly different design that was virtually identical, and there was nothing Bacon could do about it.

Bacon became concerned with the quality of manufacturing at Hillside Plastics in the early 1980s. In response, in 1983 he took his molds to the Hussey Molding Corporation of Manchester, New Hampshire for production. Bacon sold the jug manufacturing, printing, and sales to Hussey around 1986. A few years later, a sales agent for Hussey that knew Hussey was interested in getting out of the screen printing and sales portion of the syrup jug business, recognized that both Dave McClure’s Honey and Maple Products and Roger Ames‘ American Maple Products of Newport, Vermont were each buying a lot of jugs. The agent put McClure and Ames in touch and in 1988 McClure and Ames partnered to purchase the painting and sales portion of the Bacon Jug Company, opening a shop in part of the old Cary Maple Sugar Company warehouse in St. Johnsbury, Vermont. Hussey continued to serve as their jug manufacturer. A few years later McClure bought out Ames and moved the printing and distribution to a new facility in Littleton, New Hampshire. McClure himself sold the Bacon Jug Company in 1997 to Dutch Gold Honey, Incorporated and its subsidiary, Gamber Container, out of Lancaster, Pennsylvania, who continue to own and operate the Bacon Jug Company from the Littleton location. Under the ownership of Dutch Gold and Gamber, manufacturing of the Bacon jug was moved from Hussey to Hillside Plastics of Turners Falls, Massachusetts. Charlie Bacon passed away in 2006.

 

R.M. Lamb – Bob Lamb

Robert “Bob” Lamb, inventor and manufacturer of Lamb Naturalflow plastic tubing, also offered a blow molded plastic jug for maple syrup in the 1970s and 1980s. Described as a “pot bellied plastic jug” by Lamb, this container was shaped and colored to look like a stoneware loop handle jug with very rounded shoulders and a tapered base. These were made from XT Polymer plastic, similar to the Kress jugs, and silkscreened with a one color, old-time sugarbush scene created by an unnamed “famous French artist” according to information in a 1973 letter from Bob Lamb to Fred Laing at the University of Vermont. When first released, the Lamb jug featured a metal ALCOA tamper-proof cap, like the Kress jugs, and later replaced by a plastic cap. Not a lot is known about the Lamb jugs. They were released in 1973 in two metric sizes of 125 and 500 milliliters and were targeted for sale to Canadian maple syrup producers.  Lamb felt that we were all going to be going metric in North America and it was wise to make his containers  in metric sizes from the start. In 1975 Lamb expanded his line to include 1-liter and 2-liter jugs.

Lamb jugs were made of XT Polymer plastic, the same material used by Elmer Kress, because Lamb thought it made for a better looking container; however, the Lamb jugs were slightly more expensive than the Kress containers. The Lamb jug appears in advertisements in the Digest from 1973 through 1977 and in Canadian equipment sales catalogs in the early 1980s before being discontinued by 1985.

 

Fairfield Plastics – S. Allen Soule

Allen Soule, the Vermont inventor of the first lithographed metal can for maple syrup producers in the late 1940s, got into the plastic jug making business in 1975 when he purchased a blow molding machine for the manufacturing of small sized polypropylene plastic containers. Soule’s containers were designed for sales in gift shops and the tourist trade. Most of Soule’s jugs were made for use in bottling syrup from his Fairfield Farms brand pure maple and blended syrups. In addition to making containers for his own maple products, Soule sold containers to syrup makers under the name Fairfield Plastics. Soule’s containers resembled small ceramic jugs with short necks and loop handles and in some cases were made from a bright yellow plastic. According to John Soule, son of S. Allen Soule, Fairfield Plastics ended production in 1987 when the molding machine and molds were destroyed in a fire at their Fairfield, Vermont bottling plant. Unfortunately, I have not been able to locate examples of the S. Allen Soule jug to illustrate here.

1980s

P.H. S. Syrup Jugs – Peter Stransky

Peter Stransky entered the maple business in the 1960s, selling maple syrup equipment out of Collingwood, Ontario, later adding syrup buying, packing, and sales to the company activities. Between 1967 and 1979, Stransky saw early success as the primary distributor of the Ontario Maple Syrup Producers Association orange, white, and green metal cans. Stransky realized that if he made his own plastic containers, he could cut out the middleman for container purchases and have better control over quality and availability. In 1978, Stransky had molds designed for five smaller sizes of jugs, ranging from 3.4 ounces to a quart. His jugs were made by Olympus Plastics, a blow-molding company in Richmond Hill, Ontario. The containers were a round jug shape with a loop handle, a pronounced shoulder break, a reinforced ridge near the lip, and were painted with one color screen printing of a traditional maple sugaring scene. Stransky’s primary intent was making containers for his own packaging, but he also offered the containers for sale, primarily to Ontario and U.S. syrup producers. Manufacture and sale of the Stransky jugs continued until 1998 when Peter Stransky retired and closed his equipment and syrup sales business without selling or transferring the molds for his containers. Peter Stransky passed away in 2020.

 

Sugarhill Maple Containers – Dick Haas

Hillside Plastics got its start in 1967 as a small family-owned plastics company operating out of a horse barn in Sunderland, Massachusetts, blow molding containers for apple cider and fluid milk. As a young man in his twenties, Richard Haas began working as an employee at Hillside Plastics in 1969. In the early years, the company struggled and was not always able to cover Dick’s salary. Instead, Dick was occasionally paid in company shares, which ultimately led Dick and Janet Haas to purchase the company in the mid-1970s.

Hillside Plastics first made plastic jugs for maple syrup in 1970 when Charlie Bacon contracted with Hillside to do the blow molding of his new Bacon Jug (see Part II of this article in December 2021 issue of the Digest). When the Bacon Jug company decided to take their business elsewhere in 1980, Hillside Plastics, having learned a great deal about the plastic syrup jug business, formed Sugarhill Containers to manufacture and sell a high-density polyethylene (HDPE) maple syrup jug of its own design. According to Peter Haas, Dick’s son, demand for plastic jugs really increased in the 1980s when the large wholesale club stores on the west coast began to shift to shipping and selling syrup packed in plastic.

The company grew to a workforce of over fifty employees producing 60,000 jugs a day, necessitating a move in 1993 to a larger and new 47,000 square foot building up the road in Turners Falls. In addition to maple syrup jugs and even a plastic cabin-shaped container in 1995, Hillside Plastics expanded their catalog to manufacture blow-molded containers for a variety of other industrial, automotive, and food products; however, maple syrup jugs were always the centerpiece of their business.

Sugarhill Containers grew so popular over time that Dick Haas noted in 1997 that they were making more containers in one day than they made in an entire year in the early 1970s. The Sugarhill Containers are noted for being the leaders in developing and patenting the Extended Life (XL) exterior coating as a measure to reduce the air and moisture permeability of the plastic and better preserve the color grade of the syrup inside. Hillside has come up with other materials and design innovations, like developing a material for labels that would not wrinkle and could expand and shrink with the hot filling and cooling of plastic syrup jugs. In addition to producing Sugarhill Containers, Hillside Plastics does contract molding for other brands of maple syrup jugs, such as the Bacon Jug in the 1970s and again in the 2000s. Following the death of Dick Haas in 2010, the company continued to operate under the leadership of his wife Janet, and three children Peter Haas, Greg Haas, and Kate (Haas) Colby. The Haas family sold the business in 2015 to its current owner, Plastic Industries, Inc. and its parent company Carr Management, Inc.

 

T.A.P. Farm, Inc. – Chris Audley

Chris Audley, a Quebec syrup maker, became the Bacon Jug distributor for Canada in 1979. In 1980, at roughly the same time the Bacon Jug company made a shift in manufacturers away from Hillside Plastics to Hussey Plastics, Charlie Bacon and Chris Audley realized that importing American made jugs into Canada was too expensive. Instead, Charlie Bacon had a set of molds sent to Audley to begin manufacturing Bacon jugs in Quebec. Audley found a blow-molder near Montreal, Quebec and ensured jugs were printed in French and English as required for sale in Canada. Audley formalized his container business in 1982 when he formed company called T.A.P. Farm, Inc. with the T.A.P. name an acronym for Ton Acériculteur Provincal, meaning “your provincial sugarmaker.”

Audley’s T.A.P. Farm, Inc. unfortunately went bankrupt in 1983 when it unsuccessfully tried to launch 250 ml and 500ml foil-lined, cardboard containers for packaging maple syrup. Later that year, Audley sold the plastic jug portion of the business to Gerard Filion, a hardware store owner in St. Andrews East, Quebec who carried maple syrup making supplies and sold a good amount of Audley’s Canadian Bacon Jug.

 

Les Cruchons J.U.G.S. – Gerard Filion

In the late 1970s, Gerard Filion and his wife Lise were running St. Andrews Hardware store in St. Andrews Est, Quebec. Their store specialized in the sale of maple sugaring supplies, including the Bacon Jug supplied to Filion by Chris Audley, the Canadian distributor for Bacon Jugs. In 1983, Filion purchased Audley’s T.A.P. Farm, Inc. syrup container company and entered the plastic jug manufacturing business, calling his new company Les Cruchons J.U.G.S. Since he did not assume Audley’s Bacon Jug distributorship, one of the first things Filion did was develop his own jug design and molds.

His first jugs featured a step on the shoulder of the jug and a looping handle and were made under contract by a Montreal blow molding firm.  In 1992, Filion purchased his own silk-screening machine and was doing the printing on the jugs in the back of the hardware store. Around 1994, Filion introduced a new jug design featuring a more angled shoulder and a squared loop handle. By 1996, this design replaced the stepped shoulder jugs and became the Les Cruchons jug shape that is still in use today.

The popularity of Les Cruchons syrup jugs grew fast and in 2000, Filion made the move to go into the jug manufacturing business full time and compete with the American manufacturers for a piece of the syrup jug market. That year he purchased a large warehouse production facility just across the border in nearby Hawkesbury, Ontario where corporate taxes were lower than in Quebec. He also began to do his own blow-molding of HDPE syrup jugs, as well as a variety of other food, pharmaceutical, and detergent containers. By 2005, sales had grown to include around five million syrup jugs a year produced in eleven shapes and sizes. Wishing to see the company grow, Filion made the decision in 2005 to sell Les Cruchons J.U.G.S. to Salvatore Nicastro and the AMPAK Corporation, investors from Montreal with experience in the plastics business and the necessary capital to fund the expansion. Gerard Filion and members of his family stayed on to assist the company for another 5 to 6 years. In 2014, Les Cruchons J.U.G.S., Inc. formally changed its name to Ampak Plast Inc., and continues to manufacture and distribute the Les Cruchons plastic syrup containers from their Hawkesbury facility.

As illustrated in this article, the story of the development and introduction of the jug-shaped plastic container for packaging maple syrup spanned three decades, from the 1960s to the 1980s. Although the industry continues to evolve and grow, the largest manufacturers in the modern syrup jug market can trace their origins to the 1980s and the earlier efforts, events, and individuals that paved the way for them.

This article first appeared in 2021 in three parts (Part I, Part II, Part III) in three separate issues of the Maple Syrup Digest. It has been condensed into one updated article here with the addition of a few more images, some images in color that were in black and white in the Maple Digest version, and few new details and lines of text.