Sales, Marketing and Human Nature
Anyone who frequents Williams Sonoma knows that they rotate their "spotlights". Every month or so a new set of products is grouped together at the front of the store. Holidays are the obvious suspects, as is barbeque season.
About 18 months ago I was in the Bloor Street store, here in Toronto, and it was pancakes, pancakes, pancakes. There were fancy pans, and expensive mixes (not to mention expensive mixers). There were pancake moulds, and there were pancake toppings. Which brings us to the maple syrup.
In their Bloor Street store, Williams Sonoma was selling obnoxiously expensive bottles of gourmet Vermont Maple Syrup. Available for a limited time only.
A week or so later, my Williams Sonoma catalogue was waiting in my mailbox. The catalogue that we get here is the US catalogue, with a maple leaf sticker on the front cover. Whatever. Suffice it to say that it's pancakes, pancakes, pancakes.
In the United States Williams Sonoma was selling obnoxiously expensive bottles of gourmet Ontario Maple Syrup. Available for a limited time only.
So if you want to convince people that maple syrup is worth more than $15 per 1/4 litre, you'd better make sure it was imported. Canadian for the Americans, and American for the Canadians.
It's just human nature. Imported often feels like it's automatically better than domestic. After all, it must be better, if it's different from that dime-a-dozen product on the shelves of the local grocery store. I suspect that we all have a dark, secretive place in out hearts where we think that Niagara or Napa wines can't possibly be as good as their French equivalents.
There's an exotic appeal to a product that has travelled to us, even if it has come from an Ontario sugar bush - which I remember as being cold and wet in the early spring. Although I also remember hot, fresh syrup poured out into a trough full of snow. That sure was yummy! I suspect that a Vermont sugar bush looks essentially the same.
Caveats: There are exceptions. Anyone who has heard an Albertan go on about Taber Corn knows that. And the more expertise a person has on the subject, the less powerful the effect.
