China Comb Honey Cheap

[Sundance]

Just read in the latest Bee Culture where Chinese cut comb honey is being sold in California retailing for $1.99 a package!!! Yikes!!!!!!!

[Jim Fischer]

Welcome to "world trade", where the supplier
willing to pay workers the least, in the location
where sanitary and environmental laws are the
most lax, leads a race to the bottom on price,
and hence, quality.

The SOBs even ripped off the Tom Ross patent on
round comb sections (US Patent 4185343, which can
be found in its entirety at http://uspto.gov ),
a move that, if I had a financial interest in
the Ross Rounds company, would prompt me to file
a "trade dress" action against these products
(the same sort of action that allows customs to
seize and destroy fake Gucci handbags, Rolex
watches, and other "counterfeit goods", or "knockoffs").

So, it looks confusingly like a Ross Round,
but it ain't. And it looks confusingly like
comb honey too, but come on, when was the
last time anyone tried to sell "100% Chinese honey"?
Answer: Never.

Why?
Flavor.

What Flavor?
One that needs to be masked by blending it with
honey from other places.

So I'd sure like to sample some of this comb
honey. I'm am certain that it is worth exactly
what they ask for it - about half the price of
quality comb honey.

[Trevor Mansell]

I cant believe anyone would even consider buying that crap!!!

[BeeBear]

I wonder how many consumers these days can even recognize "quality comb honey". I suspect that most people consider honey a commodity and have no ida that there's a difference in taste. Many of the people I have bored with beekeeping trivia didn't even know that there were different types of honey from different flowers.

I wonder how much an advertising campaign to improve the image of honey in the eyes of consumers would increase honey sales? It would be even nicer if there were labeling requirements so that consumers knew what they were buying. I checked a label the other day and there was no indication of where the honey was packed, much less where it was produced.

[SilverFox]

Think about where it is being sold, CALIFORNIA, that says it all.