Great River Maple produces pure maple syrup from Iowa trees along the Mississippi River in eastern Iowa. You can shop their products online here. Thanks Dan and Jeremy for sharing your story with us!
What is the name of your farm and where are you located?
Great River Maple. We are located on the Mississippi River in eastern Iowa.
Tell us a little about the make-up of your farm.
We are a family farm on the bluffs of the Mississippi River in NE Iowa. We are providing organic pure maple syrup to the great state of Iowa. We have been in the business for about 8 years now, but our great grandfather made syrup back in the 1920s on this same land. We try to make the highest quality maple syrup that we can, and we know our customers can tell the difference. We are a family run operation, and in case you haven’t noticed we not in Vermont! Great maple syrup is coming out of Iowa!!
What does your farm specialize in?
Organic pure maple syrup and maple cream
Can you tell us a few things that make your signature product(s) special?
We don’t cut corners. We work in some of the most difficult terrain with the steep hills and valleys of NE Iowa but we do not let that affect the quality of our product. We just work harder.
What is your farm’s biggest season?
We produce maple syrup from February to April and then we have maple syrup available all year round.
Are there any special processes involved with harvesting or processing your products? Can you tell us about them?
We have thousands of trees connected with tubes to collect the maple sap and it flows down hill into collection tanks in the forest valleys. Then we pump the sap back up to the sugar shack at the farm and evaporate it with a wood fired evaporator. It takes between 40-50 gallons of sap to make 1 gallon of maple syrup!
What is the most important thing for consumers to know about your products?
Try it – You will taste the difference. We sample our products to everyone because that’s what convinces people.
Do you have a funny/interesting/surprising story about your business?
The forest where all of our trees are in slippery and steep. It very fun to take people on guided tours with our four wheelers because one of the most common questions is “how do you get down to where the trees are?”. The answer? We go right over the edge! Great River Maple purchase a bulldozer a few years back in order to make trails and allow tours to be more walking friendly, but steep hills and still going to be steep hills!
Anything else we should know?
We also have pure maple cream which is a spreadable maple syrup and bourbon aged maple syrup that is our maple syrup that has been aged in local bourbon barrels