Bulk honey prices and market outlook

[123456]

Wine is enjoyed for it's stand alone taste. Honey is primarily used in conjunction with other foods, thus altering it's flavour somewhat. I don't see any comparison at all.

Instead of 'educating' customers, try listening to what they want.

[JohnK and Sheri]

Instead of 'educating' customers, try listening to what they want.

There doesn't have to be a choice between education and listening to what they want.
I usually have several different varieties for tasting, and since it is not the generic honey they might be used to from the grocery store, I encourage them to sample each one. The customers LOVE this.
Many customers, once they realize there ARE differences, buy several different "flavors". Additionally I now have customers asking for a particular variety every year.
Sheri

[sqkcrk]

Wine is enjoyed for it's stand alone taste. Honey is primarily used in conjunction with other foods, thus altering it's flavour somewhat. I don't see any comparison at all.

Instead of 'educating' customers, try listening to what they want.

One can develope and expose to customers food pairings. Which honey goes well w/ which food or in which food. Such as a product that I saw at the ABF conference. "Cheese Honey", this honey goes well w/ cheese. Other examples would be perhaps Honey X goes well in your tea, honey Y goes well in bread baking, honey Z is a good honey to use in BBQ sauce, etc.

Sure, listen to what they want. But if they don't have an idea that you could do something w/out someone suggesting it, shouldn't you make the suggestion? It couldn't hurt.

Sell your honey. Tell people that it is good. Tell them what it is good for and with.

For those of us who bottle and sell honey to stores or where ever, how many of you sell a sample pack, a set of small bottles of different kinds of honey? I'm thinking about doing this. I bet it would sell well at Xmas time.

Have you ever thought about marketing honey at each holiday season? Valentines day Honeys for your Honey? Just thinking out loud. Sorry.

[Ian]

>>Ian - with all respect, you have illuminated my exact point. I purposely show my customer that this honey, what ever it is, is unique

I agree, I sell alot of honey house honey for the exact same reasons that have been stated here,
but I sell alot of the milder honey, no sunflower honey and some buckwheat honey.

As a commercial beekeepers point of view, we have to be extremely hard how critical we are of the packing industry. Set side the debate of foreign adulterated/strained/diluted honey.
Look at one of the issues being stated over and over again here. Blending.
If it were not for blending, I would get paid more for my white, less for my amber, and very little for my dark. My packer will have to run 5-6 different packs just to keep consistency in thier many product lines and cost would rise overall.
Bottom line, less for me.
If I have a bad year of beekeeping and I collect alot of amber and dark honey, I will be out of luck when it comes to selling that honey.
Blending not only helps keep consumer spending habit, it also streamlines production, saves costs and provides a larger market window for the beekeeper to sell their honey into .

Let the small packers take the niche market with variety honey,
let the larger packers handle the volume.

Our packer explained to us the bear bones of variety honey.
the money simply isnt there for a large packer to cover cost.
Dollars and cent, contracts and customers

[wolfpenfarm]

You know what, the average consumer doesn't know they are spending 3.85 for that bear bottle of honey and it isn't even pure honey. It says honey on it and it doesn't even have on its label that it isn't pure honey. Anyone that would give you 60% honey and 40% corn sugar is a thief when they do not disclose that the corn sugar is in there.

You can buy honey from producers at 5.00 -9.00 a pound depending on the type of honey. Thats still cheaper than watered down honey in wally world.

IF your saying honey x y or z is better in a b or c product, your advertising there is a difference in x y or z honey. Thats a different story.

I definately agree with you on the marketing ideas.

[123456]

Perhaps it's unique to my circumstance, but 95% of my customers just come in, stock up on honey and go on their way. They already seem to know how to use it to their liking.

[StevenG]

123456, it sounds like your customers are already educated!
As I grow and try to expand my market, I run into people who know the value of what I sell, and want it. Others don't understand why my honey is worth more than supermarket honey, which frequently isn't pure, but a blend with HFCS or some such.

Part of my "education" program is to explain how my honey is produced different from the supermarket honey, and why that makes it more healthy. Also I like the look on their faces when they read the supermarket honey blend label for the first time, and discover it isn't pure honey. They see the word "Honey" and think it's pure. For example, one day at the local Wal**** I decided to read the label on the steaks my wife was getting ready to buy. Needless to say, beef wasn't the only ingredient. We haven't bought beef there since.

While I don't want the person who wants to pay 99 cents for a pound of blended sweetner labeled 'honey' as a customer, I do want MY customers to know what they're getting, and why it's good for them. By doing this in a tasteful, non-threatening way, I'm hoping to expand my customer base. And if they show one of my brochures to a friend, yep! I'll get another customer!
Regards,
Steven

[123456]

StevenG

I think what I was trying to say earlier in this thread (but did a poor job of it) is that those folks that buy 'honey sweetner' from grocery stores will be
90+% of your customer base. Selling honey to people who care about honey is like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you want to expand to sell 10's of thousands of pounds I think you'll find that the vast majority of your sales will be due to:

Price, location,convenience.

When I say 'listen to the customer' I'm saying the majority buy honey from stores. Gate sales don't amount to a drop in the bucket in the honey industry.

Folks who want to sample 5 different types of honey are already sold, you're wasting your time preaching to the choir.

The trick is, how do you convince people who don't give a **** about 'quality' honey to stop at your honey stand. And believe me, you'll need thousands of them.

[ACBEES]

My inlaws invited my wife and I to taste some bread made with ARTIFICIAL HONEY . I looked at the label on the bottle of artificial honey.....bunch of chemicals I had a hard time pronouncing. The funny thing is, it had the same amount of carbs/serving as a label for real honey.

We declind to taste the bread being the true blue beeks we are. Why in the world would anyone want to buy artificial honey and ingest a bunch of chemicals which each tablespoon full???

I too am trying to expand my local market through education. One of the local restaurants serves honey clearly cut with HFCS. Hopefully I'll have a good crop and get them on board this year.

StevenG to add to your comment about the beef.....I'd give anything to be able to find a chicken in a grocery store that wasn't injected with a "flavor enhancing" solution that made up as much as 15% of the weight of the package of chicken.

[deknow]

mark, i respect your viewpoint here...without a doub the best way to deal with a problem is to be too busy making money to make it worth your time to even notice it is there

i want to make sure you understand that the NHB spends the money it collects from first handlers that go through more than 250000lbs of honey a year (a penny a pound) to tell the public that there is no difference between imported/heated/blended/tainted supermarket honey and your honey. we know that _some_ supermarket honey is lousy, and it's irresponsible (at best) to equate that with quality product.

i'm not advocating "badmouthing" someone because they are a competitor, i'm advocating telling the public the truth when they have already been lied to.

...and i don't think i'll ever get over the NHB spending a million dollars co-promoting the bee movie...as AN EDUCATIONAL FILM!

deknow

[Roland]

Ian - I understand your point. We all have different "rows to hoe". I do not think we could get amber honey here if we tried. I am lucky to get a little ELA from Aster and Goldenrod for a little variety.

Roland

[Ian]

Different floral and tastes types is one point in the honey industry that truly makes marketing a real challenge.
Its not like wheat, canola, or beef, where you can simply manage the operations to bring in one consistent product from anywhere in the world.
Honey quality hinges largely on the floral it is pulled from.
consumers are a creature of habit, and they tend to settle their habits on predictability. They reach for the honey jar, they want it to taste the same as it did last week , last year, when they were a kid. I am not saying thats a bad thing at all. Its just the way consumer act and react. I think the honey industry has done a great job suiting to consumers habit. Being able to take honey produced all around the world and placing it in the consumers hands affordably.
I dont like it when the packer continue to get hammered by us for providing the very service we ask of them to do. We are in a world market place. We do trade our honey world wide, wheather we export or not doesnt matter. World trade dictates the price we get for our produce. We all benifet on that exhange. NO DOUBT ABOUT IT.

Now, from a beekeepers point of view, lets educate that consumer and make them realize where the honey comes from, and how its produced. Lets get them in the habit of buying our honey because of its quality, and lets get them in the habit of providing the chance line our pockets with gold!

[sqkcrk]

Perhaps it's unique to my circumstance, but 95% of my customers just come in, stock up on honey and go on their way. They already seem to know how to use it to their liking.

Sure, that makes sense. Do you suppose that if you put a hangtag of recipes on some of your jars or a pamphlet in their bag that they might use a little more or the same in a different way? You might sell a little more honey. You may sell out.

[sqkcrk]

The trick is, how do you convince people who don't give a **** about 'quality' honey to stop at your honey stand. And believe me, you'll need thousands of them.

You probably can't, until you get them to try your honey.

Every now and then I see one of my jars or honeybears on the shelf in the grocery store next to the other honey that the store also sells. My honey is in the produce section, not the grocery section, so I know they picked mine up first and then chose the cheaper stuff. It doesn't bother me. I just say to myself, "I'll get you next time."

There's nothing wrong w/ the more cheaply priced store brand honey. But mine is better. I'm not going to sell it at a price that will make the store owner sell it for less than their store brand. Fewer sales at a higher price result in more profit per pound.

[sqkcrk]

One of the local restaurants serves honey clearly cut with HFCS.

If this is so, and especially provable, someone should take them to court for adulteration of honey.

You need to get Texas to adopt the FL Law on Honey Purity.

[sqkcrk]

mark, i respect your viewpoint here...without a doub the best way to deal with a problem is to be too busy making money to make it worth your time to even notice it is there

i want to make sure you understand that the NHB spends the money it collects from first handlers that go through more than 250000lbs of honey a year (a penny a pound) to tell the public that there is no difference between imported/heated/blended/tainted supermarket honey and your honey. we know that _some_ supermarket honey is lousy, and it's irresponsible (at best) to equate that with quality product.

i'm not advocating "badmouthing" someone because they are a competitor, i'm advocating telling the public the truth when they have already been lied to.

...and i don't think i'll ever get over the NHB spending a million dollars co-promoting the bee movie...as AN EDUCATIONAL FILM!

deknow

Right you are deknow, that movies was awful and awfully uneducational.

I gotta laygh out of your first statement. Thanks.

I agree. Tell them the truth. But I believe that you are wasting your time telling someone something that they didn't ask to be told. And it doesn't speak well for our industry. But if they ask, tell them.

The NHB hasn't been beneficial to the US beekeeping industry. Only to the packers.

[123456]

Sure, that makes sense. Do you suppose that if you put a hangtag of recipes on some of your jars or a pamphlet in their bag that they might use a little more or the same in a different way? You might sell a little more honey. You may sell out.

Actually I took down 50% of my signage this year. Sold out in Nov, bought 12 barrels to get me through til closing. Just arranged to get 25 barrels to get me to the new crop. I long for the 'I hope I sell out' days.

Although starting out, recipe pamphlets may make the difference between selling 3 cases vs 2 at a farmers market, ultimately price will determine your volume.

[loggermike]

Looks like the Chinese are still merrily circumventing with the help of their friends .This link was posted on Bee-l. It is Ron Phipps speech at 2010 AHPA meeting.
http://www.americanhoneyproducers.or...echJan2010.pdf

[loggermike]

He also points out that there are health benefits to real honey that would help the honey market like it did almonds , blueberries etc.
A few years ago the almond growers were wondering if they would be able to market a billion pound crop. NOW, they say at least a billion or more lbs crop is needed just to stay even with demand!

[Joel]

MMMM Rice Syrup - Sounds pretty tasty to me!

Of course we all knew this was coming in force when wholesale prices went up, didn't we?