The Purpose of Tapped

It’s assumed that the purpose of a company is to make money. That is true, but that’s not really enough; necessary, but not sufficient. The more important purpose of a company, from our perspective, is what it aims to do in the world. Which begs the question, what is Tapped aiming to do?

Tapped is a small company trying to do big, interesting things. One of the primary things we’re trying to do is build a rural economy based on maple syrup so that we can sustain both forests and rural communities. Forests are amazing ecosystems that provide immense benefits. The best way to ensure good water quality, diverse wildlife, clean air, healthy soils, and sequestered carbon is through forests. And, the amazing thing about maple syrup production is that we can get all of these environmental benefits from the forest while producing a product. And, we can essentially do that forever. The revenue generated from maple syrup and related products featuring maple syrup (e.g. cocktail syrups, barbecue sauces, maple sugar), can help rebuild rural communities. This requires not just selling maple syrup at the local farmers market, but tapping into the larger markets of urban areas. We can expand these markets through innovating maple syrup based products. By doing this, we create increasing opportunities for business ownership and employment in the maple syrup industry, resulting in entrepreneurs and employees who have deep connections to the land and the communities in which they live. We envision a vibrant rural Wisconsin with healthy, stable populations and forests and the accompanying cultural and ecological benefits. To achieve this vision, we need to dramatically increase maple syrup production. Not necessarily by having current producers get bigger, but also, and especially, through more people becoming maple syrup makers. We want Wisconsin to not only have the highest maple syrup production in the country, but also the most producers (to get more into the statistics and opportunities, check out this earlier blog). In sum, our vision for Tapped is to catalyze these efforts (with all the other visionary maple syrup producers in the state) through innovating products, expanding uses and markets, creating a brand that supports other producers, and investing in rural communities. Along the way, we need to transform how we invest in small companies, support racial diversity and justice in rural communities, and support our indigenous neighbors who developed the original maple sugaring knowledge and technology and continue to provide guidance on how we best respect and care for our forests. Like we said, we’re a little company trying to do some big things...