Fake maple syrup scandal spreads: More labels hiding name of implicated producer found on cans

More maple syrup from producer Steve Bourdeau — implicated in a falsified syrup scandal — is now being pulled from grocery stores after it was found being sold in cans with different labels concealing the name of Bourdeau’s company.

Last week, it came to light that some of Bourdeau’s syrup was being sold in cans with a sticker that said “le sirop Angela” hiding the name of Bourdeau’s company, 9227-8712 Québec inc.

Now some of Bourdeau’s syrup has been found on store shelves with a different sticker that says “L’Érabeille” hiding the company name.

This comes after Radio-Canada’s investigative program Enquête had five cans of Bourdeau’s syrup tested at the provincial lab responsible for certifying maple syrup in Quebec and found syrup labelled as pure had in fact been cut with 50 per cent cane sugar.

Bourdeau originally told Enquête he believed the cans containing the fake syrup may have come from one of his suppliers from out of province, and that he followed all applicable laws and regulations.

Bourdeau didn’t respond to Enquête’s request to comment on the “Angela” labels.

As with “le sirop Angela,” it was consumers who alerted Enquête after peeling off the “L’Érabeille” sticker and finding the name of Bourdeau’s company underneath.

‘People will do anything to get rich’

Pierre Alain is the owner of L’Érabeille, a food distribution company that purchased syrup from Bourdeau and sold it to grocery stores, including the chain Adonis.

“It’s horrible. People will do anything to get rich,” Alain said.

Alain told Enquête he started pulling the syrup labelled L’Érabeille from store shelves since the fake syrup story was first published two weeks ago, although some cans were still found on shelves at Adonis stores last Friday.

A spokesperson for Adonis told Enquête the recall process was underway.

Alain said he purchased the syrup from Bourdeau and attached his company’s labels to it before Enquête’s original story was published, and that he was unaware any of Bourdeau’s syrup had been falsified.

“It’s a big loss for me. I don’t know what to do. I call him and he doesn’t answer,” Alain said.

Sylvain Desgranges is the owner of another food distribution company, Distributions JL, that also purchased syrup from Bourdeau and sold it with the “le sirop Angela” label concealing the name of Bourdeau’s company.

“I am very sorry about the situation, and the syrup has been removed,” Desgranges told Enquête.

Desgranges said his company purchased the syrup from Bourdeau at the end of March for resale, and that he would be testing the cans that have been removed from store shelves.

Scandal hurting industry

Luc Goulet, president of the Quebec Federation of Maple Syrup Producers, known by its French acronym PPAQ, told Radio-Canada the scandal is affecting the whole industry.

“It’s our entire reputation that’s been at stake for the past few weeks,” Goulet said.

“Producers are being questioned even though they comply with all the standards for canning 100 per cent pure products,” he said.

Goulet noted that most producers in Quebec sell syrup in bulk in large barrels, and that all those barrels are systematically verified at the provincial lab.

He said a small fraction of producers, including Bourdeau, can their own syrup and sell it directly to food distributors or grocery stores, and that type of syrup isn’t systematically tested.