Honey cook books

[Chef Isaac]

Anyone sell honey cookbooks? Like a cookbook that you made yoruself?

I am thinking about persuing this on a small scale in the wintertime. Something small and inexpensive to print.

Any thought?

[Michael Bush]

There have been a few over the years. I'm sure I have a couple around here. I think one reason they haven't done better is simply that you can substitute sugar in any recipe with honey by simply leaving out a little of the liquid to compensate.

I think there is always a market. I'd advertise in the bee mags (of course), the organic gardening magazines and Mother Earth News and the like.

[Chef Isaac]

My idea was to sell them to honey customers... value added.

[riverrat]

Chef your on to something. heres an idea. Take one noted beekeeping chef (that be you) he compiles a cookbook using fellow beesource members recipes (that bee us). beesource members then distribute them while selling honey (again that bee us). Chef gets on david letterman has a beekeeping chef promoting the book (that bee you) Now that is credible I will place and advance order for 100. How soon can you have them published;)

[Walliebee]

I have one called "The Vermont Beekeeper's Cookbook". I think it's out of print now...my copy was revised in 1999. It's pretty complete.

I just Google'd, and there are a few used ones out there.

[Chef Isaac]

I was thinking of being able to come up and test some of my recipes and ideas and creating a cook book... something unique that you would not find in other honey cook books. Dtill trying to figure it out!!! Would like to shy away from colored photos. As they are nice, it increases the cost of printing. I can see it having a spirel bound to it.

This might be a good project for winter! :)

[Cyndi]

geez Chef..I thought you'd already come up with a honey cookbook, :D

You know what would really be fun??? If we came up with a "Beesource" Honey cookbook. We did that on a Parrot Forum that I used to belong to several years ago. It had Parrot Food recipes from all the members. It was great and fun to see all the different recipes from all over the USA. We had some members in Europe and abroad that participated too.

Oh yea, and the girls that sold them, the profits went to Parrot Research at the University of Georgia. Wonder if we could sell them and the profits go to a good cause such as...HoneyBee Awareness Day, :)

[yoyo]

Chef, I was thinking something along the same lines as you. Something to give a little bit more value to our honey. I thought of maybe tiny recipes on the labels, or recipe cards or something. This would give the customer more ways to use my honey. Accumulate enough recipe cards and you have yourself a cookbook! ;)

[Chef Isaac]

yo yo:

I used to have a recipe on a hanging tag that I hung from the jars of honey. It was sorta pain in the butt to be honest. Imagen bottling 100 bottles around midnight or so, placing on labels, and then screwing around with the tags to hang them from the jar.

I was thinking of a back label with a recipe. I even thought of a recipe label that is printed on the sticky side so you can SEE the recipe through the contianer of honey. However, that can be problamatic.

In any case, the labels do add extra cost. You wither have to raise your prices or take a hit on the profit margin.

I would think that a honey cook book that you can charge... maybe $5 for or something might be something nice.

I also was thinking of making a nice gift basket with some nice printed recipes on recipe cards but never got around to it this year.

[Michael Palmer]

>I have one called "The Vermont Beekeeper's Cookbook". I think it's out of print now...my copy was revised in 1999. It's pretty complete.

I just Google'd, and there are a few used ones out there.<

The Vermont Bekeeper's Cookbook is still available from the VBA website. New edition, with added recipes.

www.vtbeekeepers.org

[carbide]

I know a local farmer that has a 'pick your own' blueberry patch. A couple of years ago he bought a couple of hives off of me to pollinate his blueberris with. He sets up a canopy every year during blueberry picking time and sells a blueberry recipe book along with his blueberries and my honey. He doesn't sell a lot of recipe books, but he does sell some.

Sounds like a good idea to sell a honey recipe book along with the honey.

[BerkeyDavid]

I have printed up a little paper with a recipe and a little statement about the honey and how the bees did that year and gave it to the retailer to give away. I should do that more often. It was well received.

Cookbooks always sell well, my wife has a whole shelf full.

[Chef Isaac]

David:

The market is crazy as far as selling cookbooks. It has been itneresting to see how it all has evolved from 10 years ago.

This might be a good winter project plus my cooks might enjoy testing the recipes.

[berkshire bee]

Quote
You know what would really be fun??? If we came up with a "Beesource" Honey cookbook. We did that on a Parrot Forum that I used to belong to several years ago. It had Parrot Food recipes from all the members. It was great and fun to see all the different recipes from all over the USA. We had some members in Europe and abroad that participated too.

Are parrots good with mashed potatoes and gravy?

Betterbee also carries the vermont beekeepers honey cookbook

Chef, Anything you can add to your sales table will help. The more people you can please the more wou will sell.

[Cyndi]

Are parrots good with mashed potatoes and gravy?



Oh yea, parrots are really good with mashed potatoes and gravy. They sling it all over the walls, get it all over their beaks and feathers...in fact, you ain't lived till you've seen a parrot take a food bath in mashed potates and gravy. Sometimes we do mashed Sweet Potatoes too. Then there's the Pomegranites.....that event will paint your walls red, :D :D

[Jethro]

Chef one thing that was brought up at the KHP fall meeting was to do a "the recipe of the week". This was done at one farmers market at a jellie booth. They bring a sample of the recipe along with a stack of the recipes. If you do the creamed honeys or infused honey this could help boost the sell of that product that week.

[Grant]

A couple of years ago I bought a case of "The Missouri Beekeeper's Cookbook."

I picked them up at one of the meetings to save postage, I think I paid $5 for each of them, even in bulk. I sold them at the Farmer's Markets, along with my honey for $10.

It took me two years to sell them all. Maybe $10 was too much. They didn't exactly sell like hot cakes.

At our recent state fall meeting, our honey queen had a very simple tri-fold brochure with her favorite recipes. She had lots of copies and I asked her if she would e-mail me the file so I could make my own copies at my own cost. This would be a give away.

The National Honey Board also has brochures, but I'm not sure what the cost. I would like someone to put together a web site with all their recipes so I can pass along a URL rather than a tree-killing cook book. It would be cook to even include the URL on my labels so everyone gets one with a jar of honey.

Grant
Jackson, MO

[Chef Isaac]

I would hope to couple my skills a Chef and beekeeper to sell the honey recipe cookbooks. I am working on recipes that have a twist... not you everyday recipes.