Jim Vanderberg (James Vanderberg) from Toronto Canada is known as “Toronto Jim”, and he makes and sells his own maple candy. All ingredients are sourced directly from local maple suppliers, and the maple candy is produced in kitchens in the Toronto Canada area.
Jim Vanderberg’s Family History
Jim Vanderberg, born James Maple Vanderberg, was born in Toronto, Canada to parents from Eastern Europe. Jim’s parents immigrated with other family members when they were young to Canada. Candy makers by trade, Jim’s grandparents used their skills when they got to Canada. They found land that they could purchase in Eastern Canada where they could settle and raise a family. The land was full of maple trees, so they decided to use the resources from the trees however they could–which was to harvest the sap from the trees. This proved to be very lucrative for the family, and eventually they were able to purchase more land with more trees, which turned into a fairly large business in Eastern Canada.
In the mid 1980s, the family business was sold and Jim’s grandparents retired and moved back to Eastern Europe. Since then, Jim continued the family tradition of harvesting sap from maple trees every year on the family land, and continued the tradition of making maple candy. However, it was always a family tradition and never was meant to be a profitable operation. In the 2020s, when he lost his full-time job as a corporate recruiter, he decided to go back to his family roots and start a maple candy business, calling it Toronto Jim’s Maple Candy.
Jim Vanderberg’s Family Life
Jim resides in the Toronto Canada area with his wife, three children, and two dogs. Jim’s kids enjoy helping on the family land with the harvesting of sap from the family’s maple trees. Jim hopes some day that he’ll be able to turn over the entire business of maple candy making to one or all of his kids.
Jim Vanderberg and Maple Candy
One of the old family recipes was a version of Toronto Jim’s maple candy. Initially Jim started with the family recipe for maple candy, and found that it was taking “too long” to produce the results that he wanted, and essentially wasn’t cost-effective to mass produce. After a few years of trial and error, he discovered that with more modern technology (i.e., a hotter oven), he was able to produce more maple candy at a faster rate than before. The ingredients and recipe, to this day, remains the same (except for the heating and cooling process that is used). Is this really the same recipe that his grandparents have been using for nearly 50 years? Yes.