Price

[Goodwood]

Has anyone checked out the price of invert.?
From £10.25 to £14.50 for 14 kg.
Brexit is blamed ...but a 40% jump?
Everything seems to be going up and not surprising with sterling so weak.

Anyone underpricing their honey must be mad.

Forgeting time and effort, I have kept accounts for hmrc this last five years.
I make my own frames and build supers from flat packs.
I do have a stainless uncapping system and 12 frame centrifuge
I have thirty hives, 3/4 poly.
I feed invert for autumn.
I have an out apiary 14 miles away
I keep mileage costs.
I am running a rolled up loss of £14,000.

From £5 a lb when i strated I am now £6 for 12 oz and £7.50 for 12 oz from my out apiary mountain hives.
And I sell out.
As I said, time is not costed. But my accounts are accurate and to break even I know I should be charging more as people are prepared to pay for good honey.

 

[Somerford]

exactly my point Goodwood !

Hmm. £7.50 for 12oz....I have a shed load of empties to fill !

KR

S

 

[Goodwood]

Just read Somerfords post....looks like we are singing from the same hymn book. We need to wake up!

 

[Codford]

 

[Poly Hive]

All very easy in years with not so much honey, (no summer flow here at all, bees on tick over) but when it really flows then it's a very different story.

Wailey wailey times.... what do I do with all this bloody honey? Psstttt sell cheap... dump it quick... then it all comes crashing down again.

Sorry but that is the cycle. Be prepared for it.

PH

 

[pargyle]

SO

how can I make it clear to the majority of posters on here....

YOU'RE SELLING YOUR HONEY TOO CHEAPLY AND UNDERVALUING IT AND UNDERMINING THE BEEFARMERS

There.


Somerford

Perhaps you need to shout at the likes of Rowse Beefarmers who are selling 'British' honey in squeezy bottles in my local Asda for under £2 .... and as for the cost of 'A blend of EU and Non-EU honeys' that you see in some of the discounters it's selling at about the same price as I pay for my jars and labels !!

Fortunately, we hobbyists seem to manage to build a discerning clientele who are prepared to pay for and appreciate 'real' honey ... but in any area there's a ceiling price dictated by the local population, what other beekeepers in the area are prepared to sell at and how/where you market your honey.

 

[Webby]

In the south east at a stall it's around £5 for a 12oz and £3.50 for 8 oz. shops up the price a fair bit but I'm happy with that price.

 

[peterbees]

We've been suggesting a minimum price at the 700-year old Conwy Honey Fair of £6 per 454g jar of honey for several years now. We usually have 25 or more honey sellers here, and we sell over a tonne of honey in the one day. Some charge more, especially if they have Royal Welsh Show prize cards. I can sell heather blend honey easily at £7 per 454g jar. More towns should have honey fairs. Why not start one?
See https://tinyurl.com/yc6zzylj

 

[Show me the honey]

We've been suggesting a minimum price at the 700-year old Conwy Honey Fair of £6 per 454g jar of honey for several years now. We usually have 25 or more honey sellers here, and we sell over a tonne of honey in the one day. Some charge more, especially if they have Royal Welsh Show prize cards. I can sell heather blend honey easily at £7 per 454g jar. More towns should have honey fairs. Why not start one?
See https://tinyurl.com/yc6zzylj

never been to a honey show!

 

[Eyeman]

For a 1/2lb jar ours is £3.00 retail at the door and £2.30 wholesale to the Deli.

 

[For want of a better word]

Agree with Somerford that prices should reflect the costs involved in production.

Perusing some of the supermarket honey labels, [ do all beekeepers do that??] specifically there is one very clever marketing ruse, where all the labels seem similar..
... some have product of UK sitting alongside labels with product of EU and non EU and even product of non EU ..... all lookielikie labels.
Buyer beware!

Do not be afraid to charge!

Yeghes da

 

[peterbees]

never been to a honey show!

Try Callington Honey Fair in Cornwall.

 

[stormpsy]

Runny Wild Flower 227g Jar - £4.50
Soft Set Wild Flower 227g Jar - £4.50
Runny Oil Seed Rape 227g Jar - £4.50
Soft Set Oil Seed Rape 227g Jar - £4.50
Cut Comb in a Container - £6.50
Cut Comb in Runny Honey 227g Jar - £9.50

I did do 340g and 454g jars for £1 and £2 more on prices but now just doing 227g jars

 

[sipa]

Agree with Somerford that prices should reflect the costs involved in production.

Do not be afraid to charge!

Yeghes da

Funny how when people want to buy quality bees or queens they are seen as far too expensive and overpriced.

 

[For want of a better word]

Try Callington Honey Fair in Cornwall.

Resurrected in 1978 and now run by the Callington Lions this year on ?Wednesday 4th October, this will be our 7th year of selling our local honey there.
A week before the Tavistock Goose fair it attracts three streets full of itinerant sellers and a huge funfair in the Coop carpark.... have noticed fewer honey sellers as years go by.... and nothing like the Conway Fair!

The local Launceston branch of the Cornwall affiliate BBKA put on a small honey show in the Town Hall, with lots of big shiney cups and shields for those who participate.

Worth a look... see if you can find the Honey Mural in Well Street... and the one on the side of the old police station (Now closed since Callington was declared a crime free area... just along from the food bank)

Yeghes da

 

[Hachi]

Has anyone checked out the price of invert.?
From £10.25 to £14.50 for 14 kg.
Brexit is blamed ...but a 40% jump?
Everything seems to be going up and not surprising with sterling so weak.

The reason invert was so cheap in the last couple of years, as was supermarket (S'bury's) sugar was that there was a global surplus of sugar that saw sugar fall from £5.15 /5kg to less than £2.50. Nothing to do with Brexit and everything to do with surplus. Now the surplus has gone; up goes the price simples, same as PH says its the cycle.

I don't have the time or the qty's to support a retail outlet in honey like some but I still get £6/lb where I sell it and Somerford is right, its a hard won premium product we should be proud of and market appropriately. My old BKA sets the price members should sell for each year. You don't see lawyers/dentists/accountants etc under selling their wares

 

[Dadnlad]

A lot of relatively well off beeks around here with a few hives, approach their honey selling with the attitude that "it doesn't matter that I'm selling for £2-£3 a pound it's my hobby, I could give it away" - and fairplay to them for being in that position

However I'm not in that position, and in an attempt to make my hobby go some way to being self-sustaining rather than a financial drain, I need to sell at a price that reflects some of the effort and work that goes into producing such a great product

The public are becoming more aware of the benefits of locally sourced honey from a beek they can meet and talk to. Some of us need to stop undervaluing our product for the benefit of all

 

[SireeDubs]

A lot of relatively well off beeks around here with a few hives, approach their honey selling with the attitude that "it doesn't matter that I'm selling for £2-£3 a pound it's my hobby, I could give it away" - and fairplay to them for being in that position

However I'm not in that position, and in an attempt to make my hobby go some way to being self-sustaining rather than a financial drain, I need to sell at a price that reflects some of the effort and work that goes into producing such a great product

The public are becoming more aware of the benefits of locally sourced honey from a beek they can meet and talk to. Some of us need to stop undervaluing our product for the benefit of all

 

[kevrhcfag]

For a 1/2lb jar ours is £3.00 retail at the door and £2.30 wholesale to the Deli.

I would hope thats a bucket, because someone asked me for that price jarred and I told him I would rather pour it down the drain than sell it to him for that, he gave me a rather perplexed look.

Wont have any this year but the shops sells ours for about £5 + (£5.65) per half pound and have no trouble selling it.

 

[charlievictorbravo]

Honey from Bees for Development

I'm on a short break in the Wye Valley and visited Monmouth today. Tucked away in a sidestreet was the BfD shop and office. Lots of bee-related stuff as well as a selection of local honeys. I bought a 8oz jar (well, 227g) for £4.10, which I thought , as a customer, was pretty good.

The label only gave a postcode for the producer and no reference to BfD. Is that sufficient to meet the requirements of the Honey Labelling Regulations? No lot number either but there was a barcode so that may have had a lot number encoded in it.

Nice honey though.

CVB