Nathan's Notes

A bit of verite, Nathan is willing to share his notes on his product development study, which I've edited some...

Maple Sap Drink (maple water)For the maple sap drink I got a "it's a good idea, we want it, doesn't currently exist that we know of in the way we want it, we would carry it, and we're trying to buy some now" from the buyer at ...  health food stores ... and co-ops (Central Co-op) have.Central co-op in ... said "we'd love to carry it but it doesn't exists outside of maybe the NE".
There are some companies selling maple water. One possible reason retails aren't stocking is that these companies are
less than one year old or located in Canada. They have limited but increasing distribution.
...(start a year ago, upstate NYC, very limited availability but increasing)
... Maple Sweet Water (Canada)
... Maple Water (available in NYC but increasing availability, started company a few months ago)
... (Canada)
There's not an HTS/Schedule B for maple water sap but I have included export/import data for maple syrup. I think it might trend well with maple sap drink consumption (e.g., Japan buys a lot of maple syrup, maybe a good market for maple sap?). My link is public below. Please feel free to share link and everything else here.

Birch Sap Drink (birch juice, birch water)Good news it's available on amazon. I just had to change search term from "birch sap" to "birch juice"
http://www.amazon.com/Sealand-Birk-B-O-330ml-Elderflower/dp/B00CE0H7G4/ref=aag_m_pw_dp?ie=UTF8&m=AVNIZZ1FCA0EUwhich is created by a Danish company
http://sealandbirk.com/where-to-buy.aspx
http://www.amazon.com/Vavel-Natural-Birch-Juice/dp/B00DQ7DM8Q/ref=sr_1_5?s=grocery&ie=UTF8&qid=1398392689&sr=1-5
Stores aren't really aware of it from what I've seen. I didn't find a US company making this but found many in Scandinavia and Northeastern Europe. Apparently the Soviet Union had industrial scale birch sap collection until the Chernobyl accident. You can find it in some Russian enclaves like Brighton Beach in NYC.
Birch sap drink could be a good import opportunity or something to produce here eventually. Export is not really an option at the moment since it's not really produced here.
Birch SyrupFor the birch syrup, from a buyer a...in Cambridge, MA I got "it's an interesting idea, not sure if it exists, and we'd probably carry it or try it" and from Central Coop (phone call) they told me "I know it exists somewhere, we'd love to see it on our shelves, but our distributor probably just does not carry it and I actually can't find it on the internet" (not a buyer but a long time employee familiar with buying).
Only <5 3="" alaska="" america.="" and="" annually="" are="" at="" be="" birch.="" birch="" br="" can="" canada="" comes="" end="" equipment="" estimating="" expensive="" for="" gallon="" gallons="" in="" is="" main="" maple="" means="" million="" more="" north="" of="" outside="" per="" produced="" producers="" repurposed="" season="" secondary="" so="" syrup="" the="" then="" this="" to="" trade="" year="">[sources on price and production]
http://nsrcforest.org/sites/default/files/uploads/vandenBerg11full.pdfhttp://www.ccenny.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Birch-Syrup-Production.pdf
Birch syrup has application beyond a pancake syrup and is used in cooking
http://www.larbore.com/en/recettes.html
Since production and trade volume for birch syrup is so low, the USITC doesn't give much meaningful data for export or import.
Customs gives an HTS 1702.40.4000 for birch syrup. It is grouped with all glucose syrups (not good for our data since
this is too broad).
http://rulings.cbp.gov/index.asp?ru=n012059&qu=birch+syrup&vw=detail
The HTS data for imports is not even close on price, with values like $1/kilo. Probably does not include a lot of birch
syrup which is at least 5X the price of maple syrup.
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AtwqgtrI-JvBdEExdElRQ212OUpFMmVvTEM4RW8zOUE#gid=0

Pine, Walnut, Hickory SyrupsEven smaller volume than birch syrups. Mostly regional sales with a handful of
producers. Will have same HTS/Schedule B data as birch syrup (basically nothing helpful)
and I found no entries in http://rulings.cbp.gov/
http://www.ediblewilds.us/#!product/prd1/309575421/100%2525-natural-pine-syruphttp://www.ccenny.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/01/Walnut-Syrup-Production.pdf
Question....
Trees happily soak up nuke material and store it in their fibre... great solution as long as you don't burn the wood for 300 million years..."traceability" may be key...

very true. Soviet Union had serious industrial scale production of birch sap (apparently only country) until the Chernobyl accident
http://russiapedia.rt.com/of-russian-origin/beryozovy-sok-birch-juice/
Perhaps US or Canada is better than Eastern Europe in terms of traceability. 

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