It isn’t a secret that authentic maple syrup can turn a plain-stack of pancakes into a great meal that is perfect for a king. Many people out there don’t know that the sap itself, while very fresh from the tree has anti oxidants, electrolytes, manganese and more than forty minerals and nutrients.
While living on a farm un Underhill, Vermont Chas Smith, together with his cousin, Nikita Salmon had the opportunity of learning first hand about what it takes to come up with high quality maple syrup. After completing high school, smith went ahead to work for Senator Patrick Leahy in Washington, DC. On the other hand, Salmon embarked on managing the farm which his grandparents bought way back in the 1950s. The farm has sugar bush covering 300 acres and a total of 12,000 tapped-trees.
After being in Washington for 3 years, Chad Smith opted to come back to Vermont and in 2014, he went ahead to enroll for an MBA course in sustain able entrepreneurship at the well known University of Vermont. He was on the lookout for best business ideas. His father once joked about making a delicious drink out of maple sap since he had in many occasions bought this product for family functions and achieved tremendous success. Salmon had been making available some of this sap for experiential purposes for those who want to try on experimental drinks. The three started the possibility of starting a business of making sodas and waters from maple sap.
In the year 2015, they agreed on the way forward and formalized their business-Smith & Salmon, Inc and started creating Sap. With financial help from their families, they first started small, and their products were sold in two local stores. Within a short period of time, the response their products received was amazing. At that point in time, they knew it was the perfect time to increase their production and widen their market reach. They had sales amounting to $8000 the first year and this made it impossible for them to secure bank loan. Salmon and Smith preferred high end investors and yearned for support from the entire community.
The partners got the help of Designbook, one of the best web based platforms where businesses can find capital and grow their business coverage. They came up with a two pronged approach- where they used both equity for large investors an d debt offering that is under small business offering exemption. This approach was quite successful and they were able to raise $400,000 in equity and $57,000 debt from about 40 investors.
February 5th 2016, they held a crowdfunding launch party at DesignBook operating offices in Burlington, Vermont, and came April, 2016, Sap! Became available for sale at the University of Vermont campus. Smith and Salmon later opted to include beverages made from birch sap that contains a variety of healthy additives, just as maple do.
In 2016, Sap! Appeared in the listing of the most interesting beverage by Drinkpreeneur. Salmon and Smith brought their drinks to the Specialty Food Association’s 2017 Summer Fancy Food Show and this got the eye of Elly Truesdell of Whole Foods, who wrote a great review about the products that these entrepreneurs offer. Sap! Is available in 3 versions-one that is carbonated, just like soda while the other is not carbonated and is sold through the company’s website and also in Amazon.