Just received the new price list from our usual club supplier (Rawlings/ Compak) and nearly fainted.
Last year prices were up 5% and we were told to expect further increases.
But the price for 12oz Hex jar is up a further 43% to 47.6p per jar & lid, delivered.
The membership won't be happy. Let's hope they don't shoot the messenger.
My local customers often return their jars rinsed & usually with the label still attached but I don’t feel confident to refill with honey & re-sell. Fine for our own chutney though.
The guy I mentioned simply put the customers jar on a weigh scale and dispensed from a honey tub with a valve. He sold out most of his product to friends, family and other locals within days of announcing it available. I didn't see any notices of honey being available during covid. His style of beekeeping used to supply me with regular incoming swarms until a couple of years ago then the swarms stopped. I don't know if he's given up beekeeping?
The problem is that you have to include the cost of the jar in the purchase price of the honey and jars are seen, by most people, as disposable/recyclable. You would not sell your honey for the premium price the borosilicate jars would require and educating people that these are re-usable and returnable ? Difficult for honey sold through retail ... We would be returning to a system of 'refunds on bottle returns' that was prevalent in my youth and which died with the advent of PET and food grade polythene containers.From what I've been reading, borosilicate glass jars are much safer against thermal shock (pharmaceutical/cosmetic use) although perhaps the price (9 to 10 times more) requires a change in business strategy. These jars can be reused 30 to 60 times. Does it compensate?
As someone who regularly purchases type I glass containers I doubt you'd find a supplier for type I glass jars and if by some lucky chance you do, you'd have to buy several thousand jars in one lot. When you factor in all the effort to reuse I very much doubt you'd get much compensation this side of a century. Stick a few extra pence on your honey and provide a safe quality product packed in a virgin type III jar that your customers will appreciate and trust.From what I've been reading, borosilicate glass jars are much safer against thermal shock (pharmaceutical/cosmetic use) although perhaps the price (9 to 10 times more) requires a change in business strategy. These jars can be reused 30 to 60 times. Does it compensate?
And yet, with a product like fresh grazing milk it seems that you have returned to the past, to the supplier osla delivering to the door, collecting the empty bottles. Why not with honey?
That container already exists, they are borosilicate jars, although perhaps not in the usual volume of sale.
What is reasonably common here are shops that have honey in buckets like this with a label saying "honey" on it, or perhaps specifying the type of honey (eg. leatherwood) Honey Tank - 25 kg - Redpath’s Beekeeping Supplies Some use a stainless tank. Most suitable for honey that stays runny for a fair while I guess, but I'm told some shops use a gentle heating mat.
This is not the same as a dairy service. The clue is in the word 'service'. Milk bottles don't get labelled because there's a contractual relationship between the customer and the dairy meaning that the product is not on general sale. I can't see any model that would work scale wise with honey other than dispensing in a store where the customer brings their own container so that the requirement for labelling is circumvented as is the requirement for the jar itself. Once you stick a label on the jar for general sale then your recycling of type I glass jars becomes a pipe dream in terms of effort to delabel before washing and sterilizing and inspection.
the jars I shift, just locally, figure in the tens of hundreds annually, in all the years I've been selling I can count on one hand the number of customers who have asked/volunteered the possibility of returning clean (or otherwise) used jars.And who prevents you from reaching a contractual agreement with a client and making monthly deliveries of honey, collecting the jar used for cleaning and sterilization and delivering a clean one filled with its corresponding label (if you want without sticking, only as a guarantee or quality witness ). It is more who prevents him from establishing a local route of a few days a month to provide honey to his clients in a small isothermal van with a drum of honey to fill the jars, leaving his client to clean and sterilize the jars. Guarantee the client the supply of honey and the replacement or exchange of the jars every one or two years depending on consumption.
Nobody forces you to start on an industrial scale, if you have ten customers who ask you to reuse the jars. You can purchase 24 borosilicate jars and a second-hand dishwasher as an initial investment. You can even introduce other customers to the new service as a breakthrough in the business relationship. After a couple of years you can judge and compare the two modes of operation.
