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Just after a yes / no answer.... can you have
RAW HONEY

on your labels? I do currently and I don't want to dump these and get new ones as they were not cheap.
 
I thought you could but seems frowned apon.
Noone has officially said you can, just nobody has said categorically you can't TSO's nationally are trying to make it clear you can't.
Personally I think it's a pretty ridiculous description to have on your honey
 
Thanks Pargyle I thought you could but seems frowned apon.
Some people don't like it ... There's no legal reason not to use it ... does differentiate our honey from the supermarket stuff... it's on my labels as people started asking me whether my honey was raw honey so the notion is out there - might as well take advantage of it until some twit in a trading standards ivory tower tells us we can't .... Every bit of marketing that helps us to separate our product from the masses has to help.
 
thought you could but seems frowned apon.
I know of a retail honey producer that was issued with a formal written warning by local borough TS to remove raw from all promotion.

Reason is that Chief TS officers believe it conveys a false impression that our product has an additional quality, which is untrue.

Raw honey: all your questions answered may persuade you that pure and unfiltered are meaningful and acceptable alternatives.
 
[QUOTE="ericbeaumont, post: 775314, member: 3756"

Raw honey: all your questions answered may persuade you that pure and unfiltered are meaningful and acceptable alternatives.
[/QUOTE]

Written by Stephen Fleming .. editor and author of Beecraft ...basically a Hack ... just personal opinion and written in 2018 ...

Nobody has been prosecuted for using the term raw honey - just scaremongering and from a few muppets in Trading Standards who otherwise fail miserably to bring to heel purveyors of sugar syrup that is ILLEGALLY claimed to be honey. Trading Standards appear not to have time or inclination to prosecute the real honey criminals let alone pursue a few small time beekeepers who seek to apply a reasonable definition of raw to the honey that comes directly from their own bees.#

RAW ... Uncooked; unprocessed, unrefined. (Oxford English Dictionary).
 
[/QUOTE]
RAW ... Uncooked; unprocessed, unrefined. (Oxford English Dictionary).
[/QUOTE]

One could say that as soon as you take the cappings off you’re processing…………..
Good Honey needs no marketing so I see no reason for all this faff and customers aren’t stupid (other than those on the internet with more money than sense)
 
I get asked if my honey is raw all the time....
I think some of us have quite a blinkered vision of our honey. We know all about it but many of our potential customers haven't a clue but that's not stupidity.
I don't have it on my label but I might add it.
 
As the BBC suggests, language isn’t fixed; it is always evolving. English has changed dramatically over the last millennium. A few years ago we didn't have clickbait and didn’t know what a carbon footprint was. Recently we have selfies and listen to podcasts. (I still not understand what a podcast really is.) Currently we have raw honey, so whats new ?
 
Aye, so possibly/eventually it will get accepted as a legitimate 'description' then every clown will jump on the bandwagon and use it on their labels and it will become officially just as meaningless as it actually is now and be added to the list of twee descriptions such as 'artisan' and 'bespoke'
 
Aye, so possibly/eventually it will get accepted as a legitimate 'description' then every clown will jump on the bandwagon and use it on their labels and it will become officially just as meaningless as it actually is now and be added to the list of twee descriptions such as 'artisan' and 'bespoke'
But ... you have to react to the market ... if your customers do not seek 'raw honey' then it's not a problem and your honey can compete on a level playing field with whatever else is available in the local honey market but ... if your customers have decided that raw honey is what they want (regardless of their reasoning or knowledge) then, if your labels do not reflect what they are seeking, potentially, you are missing a sale. I would agree that my regular customers would probably buy my honey if I put just about anything on my label as they know my product and buy it in preference to anything else. However, I am aware that 'raw honey' in my area is very much becoming what customers are asking for ... so - where's the harm in responding to it.

I don't think it's a fad or morons buying honey on the internet or for that matter just a 'twee' description added by the Tofu and Sandal brigade. I think it is now rapidly becoming a recognised term for honey that is not factory processed, heated to pasturise and filtered to the point where there is no pollen or hive solids in there - it's the product that discerning honey customers are seeking out in preference to the supposed 'honey' found on supermarket shelves.

I have no desire to claim anything of my honey that it isn't - I could add that my honey comes from bees that are not treated for varroa, I could add that the colonies are kept in my garden and my bees have nothing introduced into the hive that they have not brought in or made for themselves but I don't. If people ask me (and they frequently do) about my raw honey - I tell them - it comes from the bees in one apiary - it gets strained only to remove large pieces of beeswax and any foreign objects or bee parts ... it is not subject to excessive heating, it is not fed through pressure systems and fine filtered to prevent it crystallising. They do understand that there is a difference and there is a taste to honey that has not been blended and processed and in some cases adulterated with non-honey. You understimate a customer at your peril .. they may not all have the knowledge to back up what they are seeking but if your honey fails to meet their expectations in what they see in the label you have no hope of them meeting their expectations of taste.

Gain a customer with your marketing - keep them with the taste.
 

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