Tapping Into Togetherness

Maple Valley has over 30 farmer members tapping trees in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, New York and Vermont. These are family farms, most of which are multi-generational and many that span for several generations where they’ve passed along the craft of maple sugaring from one generation to the next. We carefully consider the farmers who join the cooperative. In return for their dedication to quality and stewardship, the co-op offers the farmers a sustainable living wage. Along with their focus of including family farmers in their cooperative, Maple Valley is committed to producing delicious, small-batch, high-quality certified organic, vegan, kosher, and allergen and gluten-free maple products. To them, community stewardship means customer partnerships and sourcing supplies and services locally whenever possible to support small, independent business owners.

Sweet By Nature

Maple Valley values sustainability in everything they do, starting with which farmers they choose in their cooperative. They must be sustainable farming stewards and ensure that their maple woodland understory stays intact to provide habitat for abundant and diverse wildlife and to prevent soil erosion. They minimally tap their maple trees so they stay healthy and may produce for up to 200 years. By focusing on carbon sequestration, they’re able to provide benefits that’s good for people and planet. Maple Valley is also committed to overall business sustainability.  The energy used at their main office and bottling facility, located in the rural town of Cashton in southwest Wisconsin, is offset through a partnership with the community wind project. Maple Valley products are packaged in both glass and BPA-free, recyclable plastic. 

Maple Valley Cooperative

Maple Valley was originally co-founded almost 30 years ago by Cecil Wright and two good friends. A life-long maple farmer to this day, Cecil also worked at Organic Valley/CROPP Cooperative for 18 years, offering him the experience that fueled the determination to shift Maple Valley’s business structure to a cooperative in 2007. Today it is a thriving cooperative with a conscience owned by farmers, employees, customers, vendors, and investors with a common vision for a healthy world where nature is protected, people cooperate for the good of all and communities are strong.

The Maple Valley mission is “to produce and market the finest organic maple products with fair and sustainable methods while respecting their farmers, customers, vendors, employees, the land, and their communities.”  They believe that it takes dedicated organic maple farmers and artisan bottlers to craft a nutrient-rich maple syrup with an ideal color and exquisite taste profile. Maple syrup is a single-ingredient superfood sweetener!