Selling price 8oz jar of honey?

[Robert Clark]

Not that I am aware of these days. MYbe someone out there can clarify (and also point to where it is on the HMRC site)

https://www.gov.uk/expenses-if-youre-self-employed

You can be employed and self employed as a secondary income

 

[Erichalfbee]

Not that I am aware of these days. MYbe someone out there can clarify (and also point to where it is on the HMRC site)

Look here https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/index-of-stickies.50958/
Scroll down to TAX

 

[Peterjay]

Look here https://beekeepingforum.co.uk/threads/index-of-stickies.50958/
Scroll down to TAX

There is some excellent information there; thank you for the link.
I follow the advice given on the link here:
https://www.ridgefieldconsulting.co.uk/tax-guides/how-hmrc-taxes-hobbies-and-side-hustles/

 

[Penninetrader]

I think it’s important to have a single, well thought out plan

Contingencies are fine

But multiple plans encourage procrastination (in my humble opinion)

The girls will sort you out, LOL. Pragmatism and catastrophe management will be taught to you in their own good time.

 

[Penninetrader]

You are talking about beekeeping. That doesn’t apply.
You go into a colony to put a Queen excluder on and then a super.
Inside the brood box you find ten queen cells.
Are you going to put that QX and super on?

Is there a prize for the correct answer :}

 

[Penninetrader]

Had an interesting email from a local farm shop to say that they would like to buy all my excess honey!

They buy 1lb jars for upto £6

Not as profitable as selling direct at our village market and on Facebook Marketplace, but a lot less hassle and potentially faster turnaround of cash.

Thoughts ?

Honey keeps

 

[Penninetrader]

Useful journey for me as well, and illustrated the minefield of pitching at the right price to the right market.



Yes, we work in a niche market and ought not to stoop to compete with supermarket prices. The other part of the equation is that beekeepers often complain that they can't raise the price in their area, as if it is set in stone. Likely that an imaginary fear of offending the customer or of having stock sitting in the garage leads to inertia, but if they put it up 50p every couple of years no-one would notice; in fact, it would be expected.

I heard recently of one area where they find it impossible to raise prices: local honey outlets near Stanford-le-Hope are apparently dominated by one beekeeper who produces a lot and sells widely at 1967 prices. The others despair; I suggested they buy as much as they could of his stock and sell it properly, but of course, they would then have to re-train the retailers.


Not if you want a regular increase on your return because UK bulk prices are linked to global prices, which are determined by big players and have hovered around £3.50 for a long while.

In other words, you have a Roll-Royce but aim to sell it in a yard full of knackered Ford Mondeos. Why bother? I recall a talk by Michael Palmer (at1.50) in which he decided he'd had enough, and stopped selling honey to packers because his hard work would end up diluted with corn syrup and put into junk sauces. Instead he sold it to other beekeepers, who would do the work to bottle it and make a margin.

If he produces the real deal honey, let us all know who he is and I am sure we could buy him out. 1967 prices would be too good to miss

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

They buy 1lb jars for upto £6

I would say £6.00 would be a 'from.... upwards' rather than 'up to'

 

[Robert Clark]

I would say £6.00 would be a 'from.... upwards' rather than 'up to'

Mrs C and I and popping into their shop later to see what honey they’re selling and how much for.

 

[ericbeaumont]

buy him out

No, it's a distant story so no detail, but it is not unique and those types are often obstinate and couldn't care less about the bigger picture.

What is the bigger picture? If you think honey is just a charming garden-gate sale or a bonus to prop up your pension, think again: honey is a geo-political asset and we all have a part to play in using it to lead the public down the right path - one that leads to a Sussex garden gate and not the longer one that leads to China.

Why is that critical? Covid lockdown gave us insight into the fragility of food supply lines, of public ignorance of food sources, and of the blind and misplaced faith we place in supermarkets that has, at last, cultivated in us a justifiable lack of trust in manufactured food.

Those who sell real honey cheaply stand and salute supermarket mentality - that we should look only at the bottom line and not at the real cost of cheap food produced poorly a long way away. The real cost of cheap food is paid by the taxpayer further down the road, when diabetes, obesity, high blood pressure and all the rest kick in.

That we should eat less, eat better, and pay more for real food is a sustainable model. By comparison, the supermarket seeks only profit and cares little for the wider consequences of its insatiable methods, for what is trampled under its big boot: the soil, the farmer, the retailer, the consumer.

 

[pargyle]

It may be too late Eric ...

Last week Starmer announced how we needed companies like BlacK Rock to invest in the UK in order to grow the economy:

This is how BlackRock could do considerable damage to British family farming in 7 easy steps ...

1. They will start buying up small plots of agricultural land at double the normal price. They will issue a directive to all of their energy companies simultaneously to aggressively acquire plots for carbon capture. These third parties will start bidding against each other and force the value of agricultural land up.

2. Initially farmers won't believe their luck - "these city folks are mad! if they want to buy an acre for £50K, who am I to say no to these fools" is what you'll hear down the pub.

3. These crazy prices will set record high comparisons for agricultural land. When a farmer dies, their farm will be valued using these new metrics and the next generation will discover the farm they thought was worth £3M is worth £9M and they don't have anything close to the money needed to cover the tax.

4. In swoops a BlackRock subsidiary with a "Agri Debt Finance Tax Relief" product to lend them 20% the "value" of their farm so they can pay the taxes.

5. The debt will come with conditions (a covenant) that the farm has to adopt and maintain certain practices. It has to use certain BlackRock owned fertilisers, software, machinery and labour solutions that get the farm ready to interface with a larger conglomerate.

6. When a farm cannot make its debt payments, it is sold at auction. BlackRock subsidiaries are instructed NOT to buy these farms at auction. They have a special arrangement to buy the unsold farms at a rate that covers the unpaid debt plus outstanding fees and taxes to government... basically what the farm was originally worth.

7. A BlackRock subsidiary then takes over the farm, consolidates it with a massive group of farms that uses illegal immigrant labour to staff the farms (which will be another government program they institute to deal with the immigration crisis). The government will subsidise the labour costs as part of this plan making the farms wildly profitable and making small family farms unable to compete.

To anyone unfamiliar with the mind of a Private Equity General Partner, this will seem totally far fetched. To anyone who's had even the smallest dealings with the PE world, you will recognise this as a standard playbook for extracting value at a large scale.

Producing food has little to do with this situation ...

 

[Erichalfbee]

It may be too late Eric ...

Maybe not. Starmer has had a crack at the civil service. His volte face has come in record time with a snivelling letter saying he didn’t mean it. Maybe he won’t last long.

 

[pargyle]

I watched a Panorama TV programme yesterday about Severn Trent Water ... they created a non- trading subsidiary which was then sold to another for £3 billion - payment by IOU so no money changed hands ... so Severn Trent have a £3 billion asset to put on their balance sheet ... Severn Trent transfer half the shares so add £1.45 billion to the parent company balance sheet. They are thus able to justify huge dividends paid to their shareholders - (they of course deny this) .. it's made even better because the IOU attracts interest so every year that goes by it adds another £20 million to the 'value' so the subsidiary is now 'worth' £1.68 billion. This when Severn Trent water has in reality only £7 million in retained funds but paid £1.61 billion out in dividends since the smoke and mirrors accounting started in 2017. Now they 'NEED' to increase the water rates up to consumers to pay for the upgrades needed to stop them killing our rivers with sewage overflows ...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd75nqwdpj7o

Now, I've got this beekeeping business ... I have 7 hives and a few more in readiness for emergencies - if someone would like to buy it for £5 million .. you don't need to pay for it now .. an IOU will be fine as I can take that to the bank as an asset and borrow against it ... I'll then call in the loan which you can't pay but we will liquidate the company and I'll buy it back for a fraction of its value ... and I'll split the interest that I will earn on the money I've borrowed and pay back the bank loan ... I reckon if we could keep it going for 12 months there would be enough for us to retire on ... I can't see a flaw in the plan ... worked for Severn Trent !

 

[Erichalfbee]

But @pargyle
what you describe is very frightening

 

[pargyle]

But @pargyle
what you describe is very frightening

When anything ceases to be about producing, commerece or manufacture and becomes about the asset and its notional value it is frightening .... it's the big boys equivalent of pyramid selling and it seems entirely legal. Owe a bank £5000 and you have a problem ... owe them £5 billion and the bank has a problem ...

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Maybe not. Starmer has had a crack at the civil service. His volte face has come in record time with a snivelling letter saying he didn’t mean it. Maybe he won’t last long.

we had a long snivelling email from him this afternoon, unfortunately my finger slipped on to the delete button before I'd read much of it.

 

[Paulypaul]

I charge £10 for 1lb jar of honey and £6.50 for 227g (8oz jar). But, I think that's too cheap.

I could easily charge £10 for a 12oz (340g) jar, then up the 8oz (227g) jar to £7 - I'm planning to reset pricing after the summer.

We beekeepers seriously under-price our product. Equipment prices have shot up and we don't change our honey prices by an equivalent amount. I think this is a problem we create for ourselves.
96% of super market honey is not actually honey, it's imported from China, Mexico & Thailand, then bulked out with sugar syrup. Yet, we allow it to set the price of our real, high-quality honey.

It's the equivalent of vineyard owners allowing wine prices to be set by the retail price of a bottle of Buckfast.

 

[pargyle]

I charge £10 for 1lb jar of honey and £6.50 for 227g (8oz jar). But, I think that's too cheap.

I could easily charge £10 for a 12oz (340g) jar, then up the 8oz (227g) jar to £7 - I'm planning to reset pricing after the summer.

We beekeepers seriously under-price our product. Equipment prices have shot up and we don't change our honey prices by an equivalent amount. I think this is a problem we create for ourselves.
96% of super market honey is not actually honey, it's imported from China, Mexico & Thailand, then bulked out with sugar syrup. Yet, we allow it to set the price of our real, high-quality honey.

It's the equivalent of vineyard owners allowing wine prices to be set by the retail price of a bottle of Buckfast.

You probably could charge more in Surrey ..to those cuctomers who can afford it and appreciate the benefits of real honey ... but, our prices are not governed by the likes oa Lidl and Aldi - they are governed by the price of real honey in your area and the demographic of the area you are selling it in.

 

[robinharman]

How much are you paying for those.
I sell in 1 litre tubs which hold 1.3kg/3lb. I don't bother with labels at all. The tubs are clear, which I like and are 69p each with postage

They are about 55p and I guess are the same volume as yours as they are about 80% full for a kilo. I will swap over to the clear when I run out this month

 

[ericbeaumont]

about 55p

Down to 44p if you buy 100+, 41p for 300+ (but plus delivery).
https://www.tdonline.co.uk/plastic-...c-tubs/round-tub-range-jetb/850ml-with-handle