Take your self down the honey part of a grocery store aisle and also you’ll have loads of choices to select from. However what you gained’t see is many UK-sourced honey merchandise of traceable origin.
The truth is, many of the honey on the UK market just isn’t solely imported, however blended too, making it troublesome for shoppers to know the place their honey has come from.
Black Bee Honey, co-founded in 2017 by former London-based designers Paul Webb and Chris Barnes, has a mission to reignite the nation’s urge for food and appreciation for British honey.
With 40% YoY progress, the mission appears to be working. However like many entrepreneurial tales, the enterprise didn’t begin with such lofty goals.
It was a bee-keeping course, purchased as a birthday current expertise, that shifted the dial. Again then, it wasn’t essentially the honey however the craftsmanship behind its manufacturing that them. “It’s a really guide factor,” displays Webb, who says the pair had been additionally eager to go away the desk-based workplace life behind. “There was an enormous quantity of depth and studying concerned.”
Subsequent Barnes went travelling and ended up engaged on a bee farm in New Zealand. This may occasionally conjure up pictures of inexperienced, rolling fields however this was removed from it. Barnes had found an fascinating enterprise mannequin. The corporate was renting beehives in individuals’s gardens within the suburbs of Auckland, sustaining them, then sharing the honey afterwards.
Hire a hive – the primary honey enterprise
When Barnes returned to the UK, the pair determined to provide the hive rental thought a go within the London market. “It was mindblowing,” says Webb. “Seeing the journey and what was concerned from the bees and the beekeeping, but additionally the flavour of the honey and the way completely different it was from something we had tried within the grocery store earlier than.”
Finally, scalability points and the beehive rental house being so “area of interest” made them take this newfound ardour for British honey into a special space. A way of life change for Webb and his then pregnant spouse through a transfer to Somerset sowed the seeds for Black Bee Honey, offering them the chance to take their ardour for UK produced honey to a wider viewers not decided by London postcodes.
“A little bit just like the wine and spirits trade, honeys of the identical selection can have completely different flavours because of completely different seasons and different components…”
Webb describes the “fragile” UK honey trade they had been constructing Black Bee Honey wherein is dominated by blended imports from nations like China, Argentina and Turkey.
UK honey – a “fragile” trade
“We’re a nation of honey lovers, however it’s about 90% imports and the Nationwide Farmers’ Union doesn’t recognise beekeeping as a type of farming. It’s been in a fragile place and imports have been eroding it over time too.”
What’s extra, the imported honey coming into the UK is usually adulterated, he explains, which means it has been altered and blended with different substances.
“The Ivy put our model title on their menu each time they use us in a dish, which is superior.”
Depletion of the pure atmosphere for beekeeping within the UK hasn’t helped both, together with lack of wildflower meadows and different environments the place bees naturally reside, making the ecosystem much more fragile. It seemed like a dangerous trade to begin a enterprise in, but additionally one, with its then lack of UK-based traceable honey manufacturers, that was prepared for innovation.
Apart from distinctive merchandise, Black Bee Honey’s distinctive providing is its provide chain, which the co-founders have labored arduous at to make clear and sustainable.
Black Bee Honey – a clear and sustainable provide chain
Each provenance and transparency is essential and contains having the beekeeper’s title and placement of the hives on the jar of every honey product they promote. A little bit just like the wine and spirits trade, honeys of the identical selection can have completely different flavours because of completely different seasons and different components, Webb explains. “That’s one thing to be celebrated slightly than hidden away.”
At this time, the enterprise has over 30 suppliers throughout the UK from Kent to the Scottish Highlands. A far cry from worldwide imports and the heavy carbon footprint that goes together with them.
The UK honey model is now stocked in main UK retailers from the luxurious finish with Selfridges, Harrods and Entire Meals to excessive road well being staple, Holland & Barrett. Webb places this all the way down to commerce present appearances throughout the early years of the enterprise.
“There’s nothing that compares with an occasion when you may present individuals; they’ll have a look at the honeys, see how completely different they’re, style all of them and we inform them the tales.”
Commerce present appearances have helped them make inroads within the hospitality sector too. One such enterprise is the Ivy Assortment. “The Ivy put our model title on their menu each time they use us in a dish, which is superior.”
Sure, Webb concedes, commerce exhibits are a considerable funding for fledging meals and drinks manufacturers, however with publicity to probably sport altering stockists, it may be value it.
With its ardour for UK-sourced honey and the beekeepers that produce it, it’s not stunning that sustainability is a giant a part of the Black Bee Honey story. It turned a B-Corp in 2023.
Certification apart, it has a really impactful ongoing undertaking, to save lots of British wildflower meadows and donates 2% of its turnover to assist create and restore the wildflower ecosystem. Whereas Webb confirms that customers like this about them, he says he cares extra concerning the reality Black Bee Honey is giving, slightly than taking away from the pure atmosphere.
“You’ve acquired a internet acquire slightly than some form of extractive mannequin.” Effectively, that’s Black Bee Honey, a enterprise that offers.
