U.S. and Canadian maple syrup producers asked the FDA to stop food companies from selling products that claim to contain maple syrup when it isn’t the real thing, says CBC. Maple syrup is made by boiling down sap from maple trees, while others are diluting the product with corn syrup. Roger Brown, a member of the Vermont Maple Sugar Makers Association, told CBC, “My main beef is put syrup in it if you’re going to call it syrup. My secondary beef is if you’re going to call it a maple thing, put enough maple in it that it’s a maple product and that it’s not a corn syrup product that has some minuscule amount of syrup in it.”
In Canada, which produces 80 percent of the maple syrup in the world, the law says that maple products “shall consist entirely of the product obtained directly or indirectly from maple sap.” The industry letter to FDA named nine products as being mislabeled, “This unchecked misbranding has an adverse impact on manufacturers of products containing real maple syrup, as it allows cheaper products not containing premium ingredients to compete with those actually containing maple syrup,” says the letter. The CBC says the FDA is reviewing the letter.