Buoyant roadside honey sales since lockdown

[Amari]

My plastic sales box is on a pole on the roadside verge next to our hedge. Customers are asked to put the money down a drainpipe just above the box which exits through the hedge into a chamber pot, as per my avatar.

Since the season started at the beginning of May my sales are about twice those of last year. This more than makes up the reduced requests from two food shops and one market trader, all more than five miles away.

I could write a blog on customers failing to understand three simple instructions on the box:
1. 'Please refit the side clasps'.... often they don't so that it blows off or they put the lid back with the writing facing the hedge.
2. 'Please rubber-band bank notes because they get stuck in the pipe' (there is a small container full of bands)....often folk don't.
3. 'Please put the money down the drainpipe (above box)'.......Sometimes they don't and leave cash in the box or ring the doorbell and say "I can't see the letter-box"

 

[The Poot in Somerset]

It's an indictment on our education system.

 

[Bear]

I’m surprised people are so honest. I’d expect everything to be nicked where I live. Even the down pipe!!!

 

[Newbeeneil]

I had a few of my jars stolen by kids last year but since I put a note on the local Facebook group that I had a camera on the shelf I've had no problems.
These are also selling much better than last year mostly I assume because more people are out walking due to the lockdown.
In the 14 days since I first put them outside my house this year I've sold 77 jars. My grandkids love hearing the money coming through the letterbox!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Sales are up with me in general, retailers ordering more, apart from the health food shop - obviously less footfall as her customers haven't that much confidence in all this holistic stuff!! and passing trade, people on walks will message me beforehand and I leave the honey on the doorstep for them

 

[Newbeeneil]

That's interesting JBM, my sales to the one health food shop I supply are up by about 100% but then so are the sales to my only other retail outlet.
It's looking like I'm going to have double the amount of honey I had last year and bet I still sell out by the new year!
I think I'll just have to keep increasing my price!!!

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

That's interesting JBM, my sales to the one health food shop I supply are up by about 100% but then so are the sales to my only other retail outlet.

I think it's because the town centre is more or less a ghost town now with only the two butchers, the health food shop, Iceland and Home Bargains open. People in the area don't really do health food and many of her customers are the ageing hippies who moved to the area in the 1960's and are shielding.
Back up the valley, most people are just getting goods delivered or just running to Tesco or Lidl's for a quick once a week restock, the animal feed shop in the village is really pushing the honey out though as is the community shop in the next village so obviously people are staying local.

 

[Amari]

I’m surprised people are so honest. I’d expect everything to be nicked where I live. Even the down pipe!!!

It must be the Celtic fringes. When I posted pics on the forum of my sales set-up a few years ago JBM replied that the box, pipe and chamber pot would have disappeared overnight in his area.
I must admit that I'm a bit casual and no longer precisely tally the jars sold against money received. That's because I've rarely noticed any theft.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

It must be the Celtic fringes. When I posted pics on the forum of my sales set-up a few years ago JBM replied that the box, pipe and chamber pot would have disappeared overnight in his area.

You must remember that Swansea is not that far away - although there has been a drop in car thefts since the late bus services were scrapped

 

[Amari]

You must remember that Swansea is not that far away - although there has been a drop in car thefts since the late bus services were scrapped

Ah, Swansea FC. My Dad used to take me - all the way from Carmarthen. Allcock was my hero. This was pre- 1953.

 

[ericbeaumont]

It's looking like I'm going to have double the amount of honey I had last year and bet I still sell out by the new year!
I think I'll just have to keep increasing my price!!!

At the London Stoke Newington Farmers' Market my sales have about doubled since lockdown and I now take about £1100 a month, attending fortnightly, and less 12.5% to the market.

Once alternative spending opportunities open up honey sales may go down, but so far it's been consistent; first market after lockdown I took £700, which was satisfying.

There is an argument for increasing prices when lockdown fades, to make the most of the raised perception of local produce. I will hold off from that for the foreseeable, but if rural demand outstrips supply it suggests that either people have woken up and love the real thing, or that it's underpriced (perhaps both).

 

[sean-a]

What prices are you charging?
I have been selling 12oz jars for £6 or two for a tenner.
The beek up the road selling a 1lb jar for a fiver.

 

[ericbeaumont]

What prices are you charging?
I have been selling 12oz jars for £6 or two for a tenner.
The beek up the road selling a 1lb jar for a fiver.

£9/340, £6/227, £3.50/135. Surrey Bell Heather £7/227. Baker's Honey £18/1kg, £7/400g.

The beekeeper up your road is living in the past: either he wants to shift it quick, worried if he raises it to £5.50 this year and £6 in two years that it won't sell (it will, all day long) or doesn't care that he's undervaluing a quality local product and holding back the price for others. There's a bloke at a market in Maldon, Essex, selling 1lb of local honey for £2.50. Get my drift?

Hertfordshire BKA ran an online questionnaire recently to find out how and where and what people do to sell honey: turns out that the average is £5 for a 1lb jar, so a lot of beekeepers are doing themselves and others no favours, and have been dong so for a long time.

For pity's sake: what other product stays the same price for 27 years?

 

[Erichalfbee]

Depends where you live Eric
My neighbour has a sign up for passing trade. Her honey is £5 a lb. She hasn’t shifted much.
I sell mine at Conwy honey fair for £6.00 for 340g
The rest of the time it goes all over the country in plastic 3lb tubs for £15

 

[Hedgerow Honey]

Same where I used to live. Local association set a price of £5 lb for its members to sell at local shows, the association then takes 10% for providing the selling opportunity.
Always used to pee me off as they never paid for a pitch, they were always invited to certain shows to provide a visitor attraction, even the local food fair weekend gave them a tent FOC, that also upset a lot of traders that paid for pitches as they started selling other bee related products along side the honey.
I myself have ditched jar sales and concentrate on bulk, mainly to restaurants, even here in Shropshire we have a beek selling @ £5 lb a mile from us, just cant be bothered with all the work when someone is willing to give it away like that.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

One of my shops moved a couple of miles to next to another shop that sells my honey. Sales in the non-moved shop stayed the same, despite the retailer selling for 50p more per jar. Sales in the moved shop increased by 70% once they were next to the other one. That we before lockdown. I might think that customers are fairly price-insensitive if they are not buying cheaper next door.

At the time of lockdown, there was a mad splurge of sales of around double for a few weeks, it's now dropped down around the pre-lockdown level for both of these shops.

 

[Hebeegeebee]

For pity's sake: what other product stays the same price for 27 years?

I guess the reason is that it's difficult to justify the significant extra cost compared to "honey" that's sold in supermarkets at sod all per pound.

I read somewhere recently that the number of kept colonies in China has remained the same but the amount of stuff they sell as honey has increased 3 fold over this time. Some is then sent through places like India to disguise the origin. And then it's difficult to identify the sugars in the honey as genuinely fake so it slops through the net.

At least we KNOW we've got the real thing! A premium product indeed!

 

[citrus]

My plastic sales box is on a pole on the roadside verge next to our hedge. Customers are asked to put the money down a drainpipe just above the box which exits through the hedge into a chamber pot, as per my avatar.

Since the season started at the beginning of May my sales are about twice those of last year. This more than makes up the reduced requests from two food shops and one market trader, all more than five miles away.

I could write a blog on customers failing to understand three simple instructions on the box:
1. 'Please refit the side clasps'.... often they don't so that it blows off or they put the lid back with the writing facing the hedge.
2. 'Please rubber-band bank notes because they get stuck in the pipe' (there is a small container full of bands)....often folk don't.
3. 'Please put the money down the drainpipe (above box)'.......Sometimes they don't and leave cash in the box or ring the doorbell and say "I can't see the letter-box"

Ahhh now i understand the avatar .. lovely !

 

[Repwoc]

I read somewhere recently that the number of kept colonies in China has remained the same but the amount of stuff they sell as honey has increased 3 fold over this time.

It was in the BBKA News, June 2020. Apparently rice syrup, which is more readily available and cheaper than corn syrup in China, is the diluent of choice. It's openly advertised on Alibaba as passing the carbon isotope tests.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

I read somewhere recently that the number of kept colonies in China has remained the same but the amount of stuff they sell as honey has increased 3 fold over this time. Some is then sent through places like India to disguise the origin.

Australia used to be notorious for laundering Chinese honey - which is why Australian honey was banned in the states.