honey price update

[JamezF]

I ended up selling to my dentist via this approach.

On the whole, I think I'm happier not to find reasons to meet my dentist any more than is strictly necessary He's a really nice chap, but even so...

James

 

[noumenon]

I would suggest having a range of prices to support one another, even for modest differences in the honey.

Imagine you're at a restaurant and the wine is £10, £12, £15, £18, £25. Most people will pick the £12 or £15 bottle. Guess what happens if you drop the £10 and add a £50 bottle?

Bring a few jars of Lidl honey to explain the 'blend of EU and non EU' and how it's cut with syrup. Maybe even a jar or two of Manuka as being an example of how you're paying a premium for an artisan product. Pitch the unique flavour of local honey and how coarse filtration leaves in a little local honey which is great for flavour and hay fever sufferers.

I've only started and don't sell honey yet. Hope this helps.

 

[pargyle]

I would suggest having a range of prices to support one another, even for modest differences in the honey.

Imagine you're at a restaurant and the wine is £10, £12, £15, £18, £25. Most people will pick the £12 or £15 bottle. Guess what happens if you drop the £10 and add a £50 bottle?

Bring a few jars of Lidl honey to explain the 'blend of EU and non EU' and how it's cut with syrup. Maybe even a jar or two of Manuka as being an example of how you're paying a premium for an artisan product. Pitch the unique flavour of local honey and how coarse filtration leaves in a little local honey which is great for flavour and hay fever sufferers.

I've only started and don't sell honey yet. Hope this helps.

Be careful denigrating other honeys as being 'cut' with syrup ...you may think it when you look at some prices on the supermarket shelves but unless you have proof that it's been adulterated ...Best left unsaid.

Forget manuka....its a niche that some people find attractive...you might win them over with the local honey story but if they like sucking on germolene... they are not going to be easily converted.

You can charge a premium for single crop honeys like heather, borage, lime or lavender...bur most multifloral honeys tend to be sold on the basis of jar size. You might find it difficult to demonstrate different price points without having some USP for each one.

It's good that you are already thinking about your marketing... it just catches new beekeepers out sometimes. You get your first crop, give a few away, sell a few jars to friends or neighbours at a mates rate...then, they come back for more and you are stuck with an unnecessarily low price for your hard won crop !

 

[maddydog]

Imagine you're at a restaurant and the wine is £10, £12, £15, £18, £25. Most people will pick the £12 or £15 bottle. Guess what happens if you drop the £10 and add a £50 bottle?

In my neck of the woods they likely go bust.

Using your analogy it is also one thing to find enough punters for 50 covers, it's quite another when you need 5000 to keep the bistro afloat.

 

[fast_muchly]

£6 for a 1lb Jar here in Notts

 

[Ian123]

£6 for a 1lb Jar here in Notts

Start by switching to 12oz jars

 

[CosmoRossini]

Spotted at a Wiltshire garden center, £7 for 340gm

 

[thorn]

I'm holding at £6 for 340g on the doorstep this year, but it'll be at least £7 in 2023. Shops that take my honey buy at £5 and sell at £8. They'll be paying £6 next year.

 

[WoodenBeam]

Spotted at a Wiltshire garden center, £7 for 340gm

Yep, priced at £7/12oz I’m not surprised summer 21 crop is still on the shelf - unless I’m mistaken if you zoom in on the photo it states June/July 21. Guessing the store has now resorted to a home made ‘Raw Honey’ to push sales.

 

[boywonder]

£6 for a 1lb Jar here in Notts

I still can't believe how much we undervalue our product. The packaging and distribution alone for one jar (jar, lid, label and time, fuel) probably has a c.a. £1 cost which needs to be factored in - even before the value of what is in the jar (both intrinsically, and in relation to the attendant costs of labour, capital and consumables) .

Forget most UK supermarket honey as a point of comparison - although it must be said that much of the better 'volume' stuff you see here (normally in 12oz jars) is usually well over £5 per lb equivalent.

On the continent, where supermarkets stock decent honey of domestic provenance, 'volume' honey fetches in excess of £6 per jar.

As for Notts, any small-scale (artisan) beekeeper selling at even £6 per lb needs shooting.

I am local to that area, if I sold in 1lb jars (I don't), I'd be asking £8, and I'd get it easily.

The attached picture is of 8oz jars for sale in Nottingham. The cheaper one is mine.

I would never sell an 8oz jar for under £5.

It's 2022, not 1982.

Some beekeepers need to grow some balls.

It's not a question of profiteering - it's a question of both value, and the cost of the related inputs.

 

[JamezF]

My wife visited a shop in Wellington (Somerset) yesterday and tells me that they were selling jars of "local" honey for £6.49. She says they were "the same size jars as we use" which would make them 1lb, though I'm less certain.

James

 

[Murox]

I still can't believe how much we undervalue our product. The packaging and distribution alone for one jar (jar, lid, label and time, fuel) probably has a c.a. £1 cost which needs to be factored in - even before the value of what is in the jar (both intrinsically, and in relation to the attendant costs of labour, capital and consumables) .

Forget most UK supermarket honey as a point of comparison - although it must be said that much of the better 'volume' stuff you see here (normally in 12oz jars) is usually well over £5 per lb equivalent.

On the continent, where supermarkets stock decent honey of domestic provenance, 'volume' honey fetches in excess of £6 per jar.

As for Notts, any small-scale (artisan) beekeeper selling at even £6 per lb needs shooting.

I am local to that area, if I sold in 1lb jars (I don't), I'd be asking £8, and I'd get it easily.

The attached picture is of 8oz jars for sale in Nottingham. The cheaper one is mine.

I would never sell an 8oz jar for under £5.

It's 2022, not 1982.

Some beekeepers need to grow some balls.

It's not a question of profiteering - it's a question of both value, and the cost of the related inputs.

You really shouldn’t read too much into supermarket and other peoples prices; it is clear that the biggest factor is what the local market will support.

 

[fast_muchly]

I still can't believe how much we undervalue our product. The packaging and distribution alone for one jar (jar, lid, label and time, fuel) probably has a c.a. £1 cost which needs to be factored in - even before the value of what is in the jar (both intrinsically, and in relation to the attendant costs of labour, capital and consumables) .

Forget most UK supermarket honey as a point of comparison - although it must be said that much of the better 'volume' stuff you see here (normally in 12oz jars) is usually well over £5 per lb equivalent.

On the continent, where supermarkets stock decent honey of domestic provenance, 'volume' honey fetches in excess of £6 per jar.

As for Notts, any small-scale (artisan) beekeeper selling at even £6 per lb needs shooting.

I am local to that area, if I sold in 1lb jars (I don't), I'd be asking £8, and I'd get it easily.

The attached picture is of 8oz jars for sale in Nottingham. The cheaper one is mine.

I would never sell an 8oz jar for under £5.

It's 2022, not 1982.

Some beekeepers need to grow some balls.

It's not a question of profiteering - it's a question of both value, and the cost of the related inputs.

To put it quite frankly you are not local to us at all your loughboro nowhere near Mansfield where we are and i can tell you at £6 for 1lb jar is right for the area plenty of people selling at £5 and £4 even . Its a poor mining area trust me if we could i would grow some balls as you put it and sell at £10 .The fact is we cant so calm down and take a chill pill and let people know there own area .

 

[Newbeeneil]

My measure of price is if my crop last 12 months I have got the price about right. If it sells out within a month Ive got it VERY wrong.

 

[Sunflower123]

Later in the year, I'm upping the 12oz to £8.00. Selling at £7.50 at the moment.

 

[enrico]

My wife visited a shop in Wellington (Somerset) yesterday and tells me that they were selling jars of "local" honey for £6.49. She says they were "the same size jars as we use" which would make them 1lb, though I'm less certain.

James

my spring crop is sold out so my local shop have started selling Somerton Beekeepers honey which I can only presume is a conglomerate of local beekeepers in the Somerton area. Luckily it is at roughly the same price as they sell mine for. Not sure if they just take everyones honey and jar it or what!

 

[robmort]

I've had a colourful sign at the gate for 2 years and live very near to a caravan site which has a constant change of holidaymakers but have only sold a couple of jars at the door at £5/12oz in all that time. Scratching my head to to know how to improve that.

 

[ericbeaumont]

Spotted at a Wiltshire garden center, £7 for 340gm

zoom in on the photo

Wainwright's Bee Farm is David Wainwright's 750-colony outfit based in Aberystwyth which has been going since the 1970s.

The packaging and branding of this West Country offshoot Wainwrights (no apostrophe) is woeful and the label does not include the country of origin, such as Produce of England or UK as required by the Honey Regs. (2015) at Part 4, 17 (1).

What would the Honey Regs. say about their Magic Honey? This can be found at the Honey Stash, via Wiltshire Bees, address Devizes, Wiltshire, which matches the SN10 4LZ postcode on the garden centre label.

The idea is sound: sell local honey at farmers' markets with the option of online orders and local delivery, but the only aspect that doesn't confuse is the price, which seems reasonable unless the aim is to sell fast and to sell out.

 

[Murox]

@robmort - I used a small caravan /camping site recently in england. They provided a small "shop" in a shed. They sold fresh eggs from their chickens, local chocolate factory products, local honey and jams plus just about anything you could possibly need for a few days from two upright freezers plus a range of chilled goods from a similarly large refrigerator. - honey price was £5 for a 230g hex jar.

 

[JamezF]

What would the Honey Regs. say about their Magic Honey? This can be found at the Honey Stash, via Wiltshire Bees, address Devizes, Wiltshire, which matches the SN10 4LZ postcode on the garden centre label.

Well, they desperately need a proofreader.

James