Alexey Gribin, the owner of the company "7 Birch", which collects and sells birch juice, started to produce maple syrup under the brand name "6 Clones" in 2015. Thus Gribin became the first and, at the moment, the only producer of this product in Russia, the Vedomosti newspaper writes.

Aleksey Gribin, Chief Specialist of the Committee for Energy and Engineering Support of St. Petersburg Administration, established the 7 Birch Company in 2013. He spent about 30 thousand rubles to launch the company. With this money he purchased 60 five-liter canisters of water and organized a birch juice festival in the Vsevolozhskiy district of the Leningrad Region.

In 2015, 7 Birch Juice Company's revenue amounted to approximately 600,000 rubles. During this period Gribin has collected 10 tons of juice, and in 2016 plans to collect four times more if it finds additional trees. The main channel for selling birch juice is mass events and festivals.

In 2015, Gribin started making birch and maple syrups. He claims that three years ago making maple syrup was an unprofitable business: it was cheaper to buy it from Canadian and American producers. The devaluation of the ruble had an impact. Today 150 grams of "6 maple" syrup costs 300 rubles. This price is 1.5-2 times lower than that of imported analogues. The entrepreneur is now busy negotiating regular supplies of syrup with Ginza Project and the Grand Hotel Europe restaurant. To work with restaurants, he needs to certify his products. Gribin is going to do it in 2016 and get European quality certificates to enter foreign markets.