Sucrose solutions were used as an analogue for maple sap in a series of reverse osmosis (RO) experiments. Based on the RO results, a model was developed to minimize the energy consumption and energy cost for concentrating maple sap at 2% sugar content up to 68% sugar content using both RO and evaporation processes. The RO model parameters were regressed from experiments performed on a bench scale RO membrane at an operating pressure of up to 50 bar and sucrose concentrations up to 33.6%. At the operating pressure of 50 bar, a cross flow velocity of 0.56 m s−1, and a temperature of 30 °C, the flux varied from 41 g m−2s−1 for deionized water down to 1.6 g m−2s−1 for a sucrose concentration of 33.6%. Upon simulation, it was found that an operating pressure of 50 bar was the most efficient to concentrate the sap to 36% to minimize energy consumption and 32% to minimize the energy cost. A sensitivity analysis showed that for 10% perturbations of process variables, the minimum energy and minimum energy cost would only deviate by up to a maximum of 6% and 7%, respectively. The maximum deviations where caused by the evaporator efficiency (minimum energy) and by reducing the cost of electrical energy (minimum energy cost).