Although demand can get quirky and spikey when there are shortages of anything, in the chicken and egg scenario, with maple syrup it was iniatally set in motion by supply problems. ie. if we/they had the same amount of maple syrup produced this year as last things would be pretty much okay.
Just as a little recap, maple syrup production is highly, highly dependant on how the weather goes in the spring. Ideally. you have a long cool spring where the sap flows at an orderly and predictable rate based on the number of trees you have tapped. This happens of course when the sap flows up into the tree so that it can bud and leaf out. What is not good is when you have a very warm spring where the sap-flowing period is very short and then it is over. That is what happened last spring, and it was a mini-disaster and there is no way to make up lost ground until next spring- when you might get lucky and have a normal season, or if syrup makers want to hedge on that they can tap more trees- which is risky too if they go back to a normal spring and the price is not there to get return on their investment.
Some of that selling out of the reserve is just basic "buy-low-sell-highism" too. They can get a pretty penny for it now, and probably next year's weather will be normal or statistically has a good chance, and then they will replenish with next year's supply. It is not exactly a government run reserve, it is a government-backed reserve run by a trade association. And they are not opposed to making a few bucks along the way. There is a reason why they are referred to as the "OPEC of Maple Syrup."
Methinks.
