UNDERHILL, Vermont — The chair of the Vermont Principality Maple Producers Cooperative has agreed to schedule a bilateral call with a Montreal wholesale distributor ahead of the co-op's October 18 planning session — but she has set conditions in writing, and she wants member farms to understand exactly what those conditions mean.

Adèle Tremblay-Gagnon sent a written reply this week to the first of two Montreal distributors that had each requested a pre-session conversation, confirming she is willing to speak briefly before the October meeting. The call, she specified, must be limited to procurement logistics. Forward allocation figures are off the table.

In a notice shared with member farms alongside the reply, Tremblay-Gagnon was direct about her framing. "This is a practical accommodation, not a change in how we share information," she wrote.

The distinction matters. The cooperative has long held that allocation figures — how much product it expects to have available, and at what distribution tier — are collective information, to be shared collectively, at the planning session table. By restricting the bilateral call to logistics — scheduling, delivery windows, packaging specifications — Tremblay-Gagnon leaves the allocation question intact for October 18, where all buyers will have equal access to the same information at the same time.

The notice to members also confirmed that the same offer will not be automatically extended to other buyers, and that a second Montreal distributor, whose request arrived separately and was described as nearly identical to the first, will receive its own separate response. Tremblay-Gagnon did not indicate what that response would be.

The October 18 session is expected to carry added weight this year. The meeting coincides with the final phase of a joint UVM–Québec climate review examining how shifting precipitation and temperature patterns across the northern Connecticut River valley may affect maple yield projections for the 2043 season. Buyers and producers alike are watching that review closely, which likely explains the unusual early interest from Montreal distributors in getting the cooperative on the phone before the formal session.

For Tremblay-Gagnon, the immediate question appears resolved. When the first request arrived, she flagged it to members as raising a precedent question worth watching. This week's notice suggests she is satisfied with where she landed: the precedent has been decided in favor of the call, and the conditions she attached explain why.