Is Spruce Sap Really Worth $500 Per Pound?

Lately, there has been a lot of loud talk across the internet claiming that raw spruce sap is one of the  most expensive ingredients on Earth. Viral videos from multiple sources pushing  products look straight at the camera and claim this sticky stuff is worth $500 a pound!

Before I ever made a single commercial tin of chewing gum, I spent years harvesting, grading, and selling raw spruce resin globally. I know the global resin market inside and out because I have been deep in it for a very long time. Let me give you the unglamorous truth: a pound of quality, clean, raw Canadian spruce resin typically brings $50 to $80 per pound on the raw market. Some areas some harvesters can get even $80 to $200 per pound. Much of those prices vary on location, the harvester, if if someone is selling at a premium or wholesale bulk price. That is for the raw material straight off the tree. Not five hundred dollars. I was recently quoted from a local harvester for 50 per pound, which I politely declined as we do our own hand harvesting. 

But do you know what a pound of sap looks like? I do. Iv sold thousands of pounds of it. One pound fits neatly inside my scale tray. It's not very much material at all. And when you process it for gum, you loose over 50% material.  

With the sudden explosion of interest in traditional spruce gum, a few newer brands are trying to gentrify the Boreal forest. They want you to believe that spruce resin is some mythical, golden material that is nearly impossible to obtain and worth a fortune before anyone even touches it. 

I don't think that paints an honest picture. In fact, it infuriates me.

Raw vs Finished

Raw Resin vs. Hand-Clarified Craft

Let’s talk about clarified resin. That is a completely different product.

Clarified resin has been meticulously hand-harvested, cleaned of heavy bark, sorted by quality, melted down with precise temperature controls, triple-filtered, and refined into a pure, chewable form. The manual labor and specialized knowledge required to do this right are massive. Naturally, a finished, purified product commands a higher value.

But notice the massive difference in these two statements:

Those are two completely different realities. Pretending the raw dirt-and-bark-covered sap in the woods is inherently worth $500 is a deliberate trick to hide tiny product volumes.  They have to claim the raw material is liquid gold to stop you from feeling shortchanged when you open the lid.

Where the Value Really Comes From

Why Authentic Spruce Gum Costs What It Costs

So why is real spruce gum expensive? Honestly?

Because you have to work really damn hard to get it and turn it into gum. And it doesn't stop there. You could search 5 forests and find no sap to harvest , until you find that one area and suddenly you have an abundance.  Trees does not equal sap. Not all forests produce usable sap. Not all locations are ideal. That's where our expertise comes in. 

There are long drives through the Alberta wilderness, exhausting hikes, scouting entirely new territories, collecting sticky resin by hand in sub-zero or mosquito-heavy weather, cleaning it, clarifying it, cooking it, testing the chew, cutting it, packaging it, and standing behind the finished product. That physical grind and years of experience have real value.

But is a small, everyday tin of spruce gum worth fifty or sixty dollars before shipping?

Personally, I don't think so. And that is coming from a wildcrafter who has spent years doing the hands-on work behind the resin we harvest and the gum we produce. I refuse to believe traditional spruce gum should ever be treated like a status symbol.

Our Approach

Playing a Fair Game

I price my gum based on what is fair for my family for the actual physical labor involved—not on artificial internet hype. As spruce gum continues to trend, the temptation within the industry is to keep squeezing consumers and pushing prices higher simply because a viral algorithm allows it.

At Alberta Wildcraft, I’d rather play a fair game.

I want a regular outdoor enthusiast, a history buff, or a curious hunter, or regular city folk, to experience real, wildcrafted spruce gum without feeling like they are buying a high-end luxury cosmetic. Spruce gum is historically a rugged, grounding, subsistence bushcraft treat. Loggers, trappers, and Indigenous communities popped it straight off the tree for generations because it was a functional gift from the forest. It belongs to the people who love the woods. But not everybody wants to chew raw sap. So that's why we exist.

The forest gives us something remarkable, and abundant. My job is to turn it into something honest, handcrafted, and fairly priced.

The forest is honest. I think the people who harvest from it should be too.