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A major Vermont-based manufacturer of equipment for producing maple syrup has been acquired by a Canadian company aiming to expand its footprint in the U.S. market.

Leader Evaporator, which employs about 60 people at its headquarters in Swanton and has billed itself as the largest manufacturer of its kind in the world, was acquired in June by Quebec-based H2O Innovation, the Canadian firm announced in a press release.

H2O Innovation primarily designs and manufactures water treatment systems, though it also produces equipment for the maple sugaring industry. Its existing maple business had about 50 distributors in the eastern U.S. as well as a store in Swanton.

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Officials from H2O Innovation said the deal will allow both companies’ products to be sold across a larger, combined network of distributors. They also want to capitalize on growing global demand for maple syrup and the equipment to produce it, they said. 

The acquisition also comes as sugarmakers on both sides of the border reported record harvests this year, thanks in part to favorable weather that allowed for a long season.

“H2O was already here, but now it’s simply become the strongest maple company in the U.S. with the acquisition of Leader,” said Rock Gaulin, the company’s vice president and general manager for maple, in an interview this week. 

H2O Innovation plans to continue selling products under the Leader Evaporator brand, which Gaulin called a “powerful name” in the maple sugaring industry. The company was founded in 1888 in Enosburg Falls, about a half-hour drive from its headquarters today.

Leader Evaporator makes a range of maple syrup production equipment including spouts, filters, vacuum pumps and sap evaporators, among many other items. 

Following its acquisition, H2O Innovation plans to hire about a dozen more employees at Leader Evaporator’s 100,000-plus-square-foot plant in Swanton, Gaulin said. The company also is set to install a new tubing extrusion machine at the facility, he said. 

Gaulin said he could not disclose the dollar amount of the acquisition.

Tim Smith, executive director of the Franklin County Industrial Development Corp., said the deal is “very positive” for Leader Evaporator, which had been struggling financially for several years in part due to increasing competition within the maple industry.

To help alleviate some of Leader Evaporator’s debt, Smith said, the Development Corp. purchased its Swanton plant in December 2021 for about $2.5 million. The Development Corp. was leasing the facility back to Leader Evaporator on a 10-year term, and plans to continue that arrangement with H2O Innovation, he said. 

Smith also said that Leader Evaporator will benefit from H2O Innovation’s experience building water filtration systems, which could improve its own filtration products.

“Hopefully they can find workers and grow the job base of our county,” he said. 

A spokesperson for Leader Evaporator did not respond to a request for comment.

In a statement earlier this year, Leader Evaporator President Jeff Smith said the two companies shared values and that the acquisition would spur growth for both.

The companies agreed in 2020 to begin selling a limited number of their products at each other’s distributors.

Peter Gregg, publisher of the Rupert-based trade publication The Maple News, said he thinks H2O Innovation’s acquisition will benefit the entire maple industry. He cited data that global demand for maple products grew 20% year-over-year in 2020 and 2021.

“There’s tremendous demand to produce more syrup,” Gregg said. “So we need these companies to thrive and grow and increase their capacity. And that's what this will do.”

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Shaun Robinson is a Report for America corps member with a special focus on issues of importance to Franklin and Grand Isle counties. He is a journalism graduate of Boston University, with a minor in political science. His work has appeared in the Boston Globe, the Patriot Ledger of Quincy and the Cape Cod Times.

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