Shaver Hill Maple Inc

Reverse Osmosis Assistance Project

Nestled in the Catskill Mountains, Shaver-Hill Maple Farm is a unique, vertically integrated, maple agribusiness that serves customers of premium maple products and maple producers alike. To keep pace with the growth demands on the farm, the Hill family had to expand production capacity. The Delaware County Farm Enhancement Grant provided some assistance in accomplishing the significant infrastructure improvements the farm faced. As Dwayne Hill noted, the grant eased the burden of the project and allowed for an accelerated timeline.

With an end goal of increasing total maple syrup production, focusing on top-quality golden syrup, the Hill family needed to improve sap handling efficiencies and increase the number of taps in the sugarbush. The Farm Enhancement Grant was able to assist by defraying some of the cost of a new, larger capacity Reverse Osmosis (RO) unit. Looking to the future, Shaver-Hill was strategic in selecting a unit that will be expandable in the future.

The new RO allows the Hill family to process sap 66% faster, concentrating 4,000 gallons of sap an hour. This has allowed the number of taps in the sugarbush to triple over the last 2 years. All that additional golden sweet goodness has allowed Shaver-Hill to continue to meet customer demands, while maintaining the family’s commitment to producing the highest quality maple products. Rapid processing of sap to finished syrup is a key factor in limiting bacteria growth, yielding the highest quality, lightest color maple syrup. A high performing RO unit enables the shortest possible time from tree to bottle.

Advantages of the RO unit extend beyond production quality and capacity to also minimizing environmental impacts. Concentrating the sap through the RO unit is a process that removes water volume from the sap. The water is stored in tanks to be recycled for equipment cleaning each day. The most significant environmental gains are in the decreased processing time in the evaporator. The evaporator is the traditional centerpiece of any sugarhouse. By utilizing RO processed sap the amount of fossil fuel needed to complete the boiling down of sap to syrup in the evaporator is dramatically reduced.

Last updated July 16, 2025