Nicole Bentler: Pocono Maple, Before The Syrup

Fell Into Food Podcast

Nicole Bentler shares her journey from a health and wellness professional to becoming a pioneering female maple farmer in Pennsylvania's Pocono

Key takeaways

• Maple water is the natural sap collected from maple trees in early spring before it becomes syrup.
• It takes 40 gallons of maple water to produce just one gallon of maple syrup, highlighting its labor-intensive production.

Main topics

• The origin and production of maple water
• Sustainability and clean hydration in modern water sources

Notable quotes

"Maple water is the spring water that brings the tree back to life."

Conclusion

Nicole Bentler's story exemplifies a powerful blend of personal mission, environmental awareness, and

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:00) I have been really excited for this conversation. And you know what makes a podcast even better? Maple water. Right? So good. It is incredible. Cheers. Because that is... I'm telling you. We're going to just jump right into this thing. Speaker 1 (0:29) Hospitalitychain.com, the world's first online hub designed for the hospitality, culinary, and catering industry. From leading food and beverage brands to professional food service equipment, hospitalitychain.com makes sourcing simple. Search, select, buy direct, and save, all in one global marketplace. When I tried this, I, one, did not even know what to think, and it is so funny that when I have this out and about, I had one yesterday, people go, what in the hell is maple water? So for everybody listening, tell them, what is maple water? So maple water has been around for hundreds of years. Native Americans used to use it for its healing properties. It's absolutely, it's so good. But basically what it is, it's the spring water that brings the tree back to life. So maple trees go into a hibernation state in the late fall. Speaker 1 (1:19) And so basically it's the water that brings the tree back to life. So maple syrup is actually a concentrate of maple water. So you, this is the very first product that comes out of the tree and everyone, like we do tours and tastings at the farm. So when they see it, they're like, wait, that's what comes out. Cause if you climb trees as a kid, most people think that it comes out like syrup, but it actually comes out more like this, like water. So it's super refreshing. But because of, you know, 100 years ago, it was really hard to get sugar in the Northeast. So basically maple syrup really took off. So that was kind of why, you know, maple syrup really, you know, is really well known. And then, you know, fast forward to today and, you know. Speaker 1 (2:01) we have this whole thing about like what's in your water and talking about that. And like, I really truly believe like having a super clean, healthy water choice that you know where it's coming from is going to be kind of the next big thing. When I first tried it, my honest reaction, I didn't know what to think. I was like, okay, is this just going to be, to your point, I was like, okay, it's going to be this maple syrupy, sugary water. And then I tried it. And I tried it when it was warm and was like, okay, this is, okay, this has got legs. And then I put it in the fridge and cold, because I'm normally an ambient water person. So I normally like mine at room 10. But cold, my God, I don't know why, but with it being cold was. Speaker 1 (2:41) 10 times better than the ambient. And I was blown away at how good this was. And I could not wait. Once I started digging into the research of the farm and what you do, because there's not many things I haven't heard of, but I had never heard of it before. And to your point, it's been around for hundreds of years, but I haven't seen it anywhere. So it's really cool to be kind of on the forefront of a category that, you know, water's been around, but how do we change it? So let's start with the farm. It always wasn't yours, right? It was Lake Russell Maple before you got there. So what did you see in the land in 2019 that made you think, you know what, I'm going to go for it? Yeah, so it's kind of a really funny story. You know, my background is health, wellness, fitness, and I'm originally born and raised in the Poconos. So I was really just looking for like a small little like. Speaker 1 (3:32) place to retreat to so I could like go and see my family and spend time with, with my brother's kids. And, um, it was just such a magical place. And, um, the owners are really special people. And, you know, we saw the water, we saw the potential in the water. We always knew we kind of wanted to offer maple water and go down that route. There was another big player in the category at that time, Maple 3, and their product was absolutely delicious. And they really took off in this space and they did really well, but then they ended up changing their formulation. And they basically tried to make a concentrate out of it and then repurposed it with, I think, a city source water. So then it had like a very unique taste to it. And they ended up just not doing so well. So when we bought the property, we knew that we wanted to get into Maple Water and just... Speaker 1 (4:21) Basically trying to figure out how to do that. And it's, you know, it's just such a magical, magical farm. And you get to, we get to do, we get to do tours and tastings on Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday. And we have people that come in and, you know, a lot of people don't realize, you know, what goes into maple syrup as well. And obviously I didn't know either, you know, my family grew up in agriculture and, you know, my grandfather had, you know, bees and we did honey and he had pigs and chickens and all the things. It really kind of skipped my generation. I didn't really grow up maple farming. My grandfather did and my grandmother did when they were kids. But because it's super labor intensive, a lot of people don't do maple syrup because you're out in the woods in January and February tapping trees, collecting sap. It takes 40 gallons of... Speaker 1 (5:10) sap or maple water to make one gallon of maple syrup. So it's, it's a pretty time, time, a big, it's, it's, it's a huge undertaking. And then you're also, my guys, so we, we usually bring on about like three or four seasonal staff. I always joke with the staff that like come March, they're going to be in the best shape of their life because there's not like one. piece of flat surface whatsoever. It's all super vertical. So and then you add in like snow, sleet and ice. And so my guys are usually putting on anywhere from, you know, five to six to eight miles a day, you know, tapping the trees. Yeah. So yeah, so it's really it's it's been a lot of fun, you know, bringing the community together. You know, we do quarterly events at the farm. But with the maple water, I think. Speaker 1 (5:57) What was so inspiring is, you know, through research, you know, we were trying to figure out what bottle to use and, you know, you know, why would we want to kind of bring this to market? And I think what's wild, I'm not sure if you've heard of this, but we have this whole thing trademarked of like what's in your water. And right now there's more estrogen in our water source than ever before. So much so that like the turtles, the fish and the frogs are turning from male to female. Speaker 1 (6:28) Interesting. So wild. So then like you compound that into like all the other pharmaceutical stuff that people are taking or like the big drug bust that happened and everyone throws things down the toilet and like everything that's kind of getting thrown into our water system. So depending on where you are in the world, like I live part time in South Florida, South Florida, like we're like the very bottom of the country and basically everybody's runoff goes into our water. So, so. I only drink maple water or like, you know, anything that's mountain sourced because it's really hard to find a really good clean source down here in South Florida. But it really depends on where you're from too. Speaker 1 (7:07) When you were a kid, did you have a lot of memories of your grandparents in the agricultural space? And like you said, you were in more of the health and wellness space. Was there something that brought you back to be like, you know what, this is something that I want to do? What was the actual spark to say, you know what, I think that we need this product to be in the market? For me, it was more, you know, so my background is health, wellness, and fitness. you know, a lot of it's farm to table and just like really educating people and educating my community that I come from and doing something really magical. You know, I think I'm very fortunate to be able to go back to the Poconos and be able to offer a really cool place to work and a place that also continues to educate. You know, we've got a lot of homeschooling groups that come through and, you know. Speaker 1 (7:58) A lot of these kids, some of them are coming from New York and New Jersey and Philadelphia. And, you know, we're only two hours from these huge cities and they've never, you know, planted anything, let alone, you know, been able to like see where, you know, a working farm, what they do and how it works. So it's, it's been super magical. So I think. I don't know exactly what it was. I think I've always been, you know, kind of all about helping people. And, you know, a lot of my background in health, wellness and fitness comes from, you know, my family had a ton of health problems. My dad had heart attacks. My grandmother had diabetes. She lost both of her legs to diabetes. So a lot of it was very food based. So I learned very early on in my career in health and wellness that there's just so much stuff in our food source. And then, you know, and so. Speaker 1 (8:48) Fast, you know, 10, 15 years ago, you know, most people weren't buying organic. Most people didn't care where their food was coming from. You fast forward to today and it's such a huge focus for everybody. You know, where's, where's it coming from? How is, you know, the, the cow raised? How are