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Makenzie Swartz

Bruce also bakes homemade pies, cakes and breads. Most of these desserts are flavored with sweet maple that Bruce taps from the trees at the beginning of every January.

Syrup is commonly found in stores such as Walmart and Food Lion. However, Bruce, a local sugar orchard farmer, has been running his family’s homemade syrup business since he was young. He brought his goods to the Harrisonburg Farmers Market on Tuesday, July 19. 

Bruce, who did not provide his last name,  used to help his uncle tap the trees when he was 4. Bruce’s uncle told him early on that he could help make the sweet syrup treats and help the business make a profit. Since then, Bruce has done exactly that. 

Bruce’s family has been running their business for generations. The family’s sugar orchard stretches across three ridges, an area of 90 acres– in the Blue Grass Valley. There, he taps around 1,600 trees. 

In 2016 Bruce completed construction on a new maple camp that now houses state-of-the-art equipment. This allows them to have a more efficient operation. Bruce doesn’t just produce maple syrup, he also makes a variety of different flavors and shapes of suckers and maple covered nuts, maple fudge and maple baked goods.