Ryan first became interested in harvesting maple syrup in 1987, at the age of seven after a school trip to a conservation area where students were shown how maple syrup was made. Ryan approached his father, Bill, with his desire to learn the maple syrup craft and that year, he tapped his first three trees.
Ryan quickly expanded his operation in the next year when he moved from tapping three trees to 60. The maple syrup he made from the sap was primarily sold at a roadside stand in front of his parents’ home. He also ended up shipping some maple syrup out to Quebec and overseas.
Encouraged by his success, Ryan’s Sweet Maple became an official Ontario business in 1992, and Ryan continued to expand his business up to present day where he now has over 3,300 taps making on average 6,000 litres of maple syrup per year. He has also made other changes to his production of maple syrup.