Ben's Sugar Shack: Community Loan Fund Borrower Sees Sweet Success

January 9, 2026

Where are they now? Community Loan Fund borrowers find long-term success. After owner Ben Fisk received a loan and business coaching from the New Hampshire Community Loan Fund in 2014, our support helped him grow as a young entrepreneur. Today, Ben’s Sugar Shack is thriving. And the newest addition — the Maple Station Market — has become a community hub and tourist destination in the Monadnock Region since it opened two years ago.

Growing Up While Building His Dreams

Ben Fisk has always dreamed big. At a young age, he set out to become one of the largest producers and packers of pure maple syrup in the world.

Today, Ben’s Sugar Shack is one of the top five maple producers in New Hampshire because he’s learned to embrace his ambition — and seek support along the way.

“I used to set really, really high goals,” Ben said recently, standing inside his busy market and production facility in Temple, where he was happy to stop and explain how maple is made to visitors

“We’re still trying to achieve some of those goals. As we try to perfect things, we set real goals that can be met each year. I’ll probably never be happy where I end up — I always want more. You become who you are that way.”

When Ben first met our lending team in 2014, his company had approximately 10 employees. They harvested sap, boiled it into syrup, and sold most of their products wholesale to retailers. They produced about 5,000 gallons of pure maple syrup that year and also purchased syrup from local farms.

Then in his mid-20s, Ben had seen exponential growth for his maple products business since his dad helped him hang 13 buckets on maple trees in Temple when he was 5 years old.

But, his business was starting to face a few obstacles as it grew.

First: Maple producers are at the mercy of mother nature. Ben taps trees as early as January but sap stops and starts flowing over the next few months as temperatures fluctuate. When maple trees bloom in spring, it marks the end of the season.

Secondly, as the number of new wholesale customers increased, so did the need for enough cash flow to purchase syrup at good prices and fulfill orders.

“We didn’t have a lot of assets to borrow against, and we were very new in business,” Ben said.

Third: he kept most of his business in his head and needed better systems for his finances.

When Farm Credit East suggested Ben approach the Community Loan Fund for a loan, he got more than he expected.

“To find someone who could listen to my story and my ideas for where I wanted to take my business — and actually fund it — was huge,” he said. “I would say that’s the largest difference between [the Community Loan Fund] and a conventional bank.”

He received a loan from our sustainable food and farms program that was paired with personalized business coaching.

With support from his coach, Ben implemented a costing system that provided more detailed information about the company’s profit margins by product and customer, improving his financial systems and reports. He also secured bigger customers, like Hannaford supermarkets.

“We started to really identify what the business was and the value of it,” he said.

By 2015, he had increased revenues by 20 percent. The results — and his dedication to improving his business practices — helped him secure additional financing in 2015 and 2016 from the Community Loan Fund, along with a loan from Farm Credit East to build a new warehouse.