Fosterholm Farm Markets

About Fosterholm

• Started in 1924 with 267 buckets and a 2X8 Lightning evaporator

• 1967 built new sugarhouse and had a 4X12 Lightning evaporator

• 1970 started to use tubing

• 2001 had a 5X14 oil-fired evaporator

• 2003 built on a bottling room

• 2007 bought a Reverse Osmosis machine

• 2011 inducted into the Quinte Local Maple Hall of Fame

Cliff Foster’s father started making maple syrup in 1924 at the home farm near Sandbanks. He spent everything he had to buy 75 acres, and at first he lived in the barn because the farm had no house. But it had a sugarbush, and he tapped the trees and hung 375 sap buckets. He worked hard, built a house and eventually bought Outlet Farm that had another good sugarbush. So he bought another 325 buckets.

Now Cliff runs Fosterholm Farms with his son Dean with help from his two grandsons. Each year they have 7500 taps, but Cliff and Dean no longer hang buckets

– they collect sap by running lines to each tree. Taps and lines go in beginning in January and come out in April.

The Foster family evaporator is oil fired, and with the price of oil rising, Cliff is thankful for his reverse osmosis system that removes 70% of the water from the sap before it even reaches the evaporator making huge savings on boiling time.

New state of the art evaporator was purchased 5 years ago and we are open for the public to view it at any time.

• 2018 State of the Art Evaporator purchased.

• 2022 New bottling equipment

• 2023 New 15 inch filter press purchased.