8oz jars

jonnybeegood · Jun 2, 2015

Quick question, is £2 too cheap for an 8oz jar of runny honey, ive sold some to work colleagues who said its the nicest honey theyve ever had & one or two thought it was too cheap?

Ely · Jun 2, 2015

jonnybeegood said:
Quick question, is £2 too cheap for an 8oz jar of runny honey, ive sold some to work colleagues who said its the nicest honey theyve ever had & one or two thought it was too cheap?

Far too cheap

dexter's shed · Jun 3, 2015

I sell my 8oz at £3,

Jeff Buzz · Jun 3, 2015

I sell 12oz for £5.00 and no one has every complained.

meetballuk · Jun 3, 2015

£3 quid 2 for £5?
how much you charge for 1lb?

For want of a better word · Jun 3, 2015

jonnybeegood said:
Quick question, is £2 too cheap for an 8oz jar of runny honey, ive sold some to work colleagues who said its the nicest honey theyve ever had & one or two thought it was too cheap?

YES far too cheap
Perusing the "honey" shelf at a local large" garden center" shelf price ranges from £3.80 to £ 5.95 for 8oz. Presentation was terrible with bad (home made) labels covering most of the jar, honey showing signs of crystallisation and badly filled jars.. some had a layer of dust on the caps and one even had bits ( looked like wax moth poo) floating in it!
No 1lb jars, but did notice a few 12oz jars from another local beekeeper that obviously had been on the shelf for two + years from the lot number and dust on the caps to the extent the price label was unreadable!!

Over the gate and at " food fayres" we are getting £4.80 for an 8oz hex, with a top of the range product and label to suit.

We are lucky to have a marketing expert in the family and only produce top quality product.

Try to cost out your production costs... cost of NEW jars, printing, bottling equipment.... and then cost of keeping bees, initial set up cost and depreciation on equipment... consumables.. and then fuel and time... etc etc..

I would be better off with a paper round!

Possibly more of an answer than you would have liked, undermining the market with locally produced and badly presented honey at a very low price only says that the producer does not value his product.... selling to friends is OK, we used to give a lot away... but why would anyone stand on a street corner and give fivers away?

Yes £2 is FAR too cheap... why not just give it away?

Yeghes da

Rant over

jonnybeegood · Jun 3, 2015

icanhopit said:
YES far too cheap
Perusing the "honey" shelf at a local large" garden center" shelf price ranges from £3.80 to £ 5.95 for 8oz. Presentation was terrible with bad (home made) labels covering most of the jar, honey showing signs of crystallisation and badly filled jars.. some had a layer of dust on the caps and one even had bits ( looked like wax moth poo) floating in it!
No 1lb jars, but did notice a few 12oz jars from another local beekeeper that obviously had been on the shelf for two + years from the lot number and dust on the caps to the extent the price label was unreadable!!

Over the gate and at " food fayres" we are getting £4.80 for an 8oz hex, with a top of the range product and label to suit.

We are lucky to have a marketing expert in the family and only produce top quality product.

Try to cost out your production costs... cost of NEW jars, printing, bottling equipment.... and then cost of keeping bees, initial set up cost and depreciation on equipment... consumables.. and then fuel and time... etc etc..

I would be better off with a paper round!

Possibly more of an answer than you would have liked, undermining the market with locally produced and badly presented honey at a very low price only says that the producer does not value his product.... selling to friends is OK, we used to give a lot away... but why would anyone stand on a street corner and give fivers away?

Yes £2 is FAR too cheap... why not just give it away?

Yeghes da

Rant over

Thanks for the detailed reply, i know i have read about people selling it for £6-£7 for a 1lb jar, so about £3.-£3.50 for 8oz i thought, but i also thought that was down south prices, things are always more expensive there.
Maybe i could get people addicted to it then put the price up? :icon_204-2:

I just feel more than £3 is ripping them off & will put some off?
I havent tried selling 1lb jars, i figure people are more likely to buy more if they finish a small jar rather than have one left in the cupboard 1/4 full.

Dishmop · Jun 3, 2015

Give some very small jars away to friends/workmates/neighbours/family and tell them that if that want any more they will have to pay for it.

Search out small eating places where they also sell their own home made food and ask if they will stock some for you... small local bakers......where it will keep warm and not crystalise....and thay might even buy some for their products.

jonnybeegood · Jun 3, 2015

Dishmop said:
Give some very small jars away to friends/workmates/neighbours/family and tell them that if that want any more they will have to pay for it.

Search out small eating places where they also sell their own home made food and ask if they will stock some for you... small local bakers......where it will keep warm and not crystalise....and thay might even buy some for their products.

Theres a fine dining posh restaurant & shop near us, i will maybe try to sell to them when i take off my main crop, they are expensive so can afford to pay a good price i think.

Luka22 · Jun 3, 2015

Code:

I just feel more than £3 is ripping them off & will put some off?

I felt the same in the beginning, but why should we feel like that? I now see Honey a lot different. It is a special Product and a lot of work has gone into it.

The Bees obviously doing most of the work, by collecting and preparing it, but also for us who look after the little girls. We care about them all year round, not just every 7-10 days inspecting times. We build the Boxes and Frames, clean used Material, collect Swarms or make AS. We replace Queens and treat when needed. We Feed when no Food available and after the Winter we count with fear how many survived. At extraction time we spent hours for uncapping, extracting and filtering, sometimes we lose part of the Harvest because of bad weather or we were a few days late with the OSR in the Frames. With OSR we spend additionally time to "cream" the Honey, before we can finally clean the jars, fill the Honey and finish it off with the labels.

At that point it is still not sold and no money has come back, which is again a lot of work. Maybe this is even the hardest part, find the right outlet. We have spent once Hours on a Market in the cold and rain to walk away with £10.50. After the Stall cost we were left with £0.50. Would I have sold more if my jars would have been £2.00? Clearly No. People who do not like Honey will still not buy it and people who like Honey are willing to spent a bit more to get a good, local Product. They know what they get and they know the difference.

So if you charge the same price (or close) as a Supermarket Honey from EU and Non-EU Countries than you are clearly far too cheap because it does not reflect the huge difference between the Products and the work which has gone into it. Be proud of your Product and don't try to compete with the cheap Supermarket stuff.

So, £3.50 for 8oz is still fine in my eyes.

jonnybeegood · Jun 3, 2015

Luka22 said:
Code:

I just feel more than £3 is ripping them off & will put some off?

I felt the same in the beginning, but why should we feel like that? I now see Honey a lot different. It is a special Product and a lot of work has gone into it.

The Bees obviously doing most of the work, by collecting and preparing it, but also for us who look after the little girls. We care about them all year round, not just every 7-10 days inspecting times. We build the Boxes and Frames, clean used Material, collect Swarms or make AS. We replace Queens and treat when needed. We Feed when no Food available and after the Winter we count with fear how many survived. At extraction time we spent hours for uncapping, extracting and filtering, sometimes we lose part of the Harvest because of bad weather or we were a few days late with the OSR in the Frames. With OSR we spend additionally time to "cream" the Honey, before we can finally clean the jars, fill the Honey and finish it off with the labels.

At that point it is still not sold and no money has come back, which is again a lot of work. Maybe this is even the hardest part, find the right outlet. We have spent once Hours on a Market in the cold and rain to walk away with £10.50. After the Stall cost we were left with £0.50. Would I have sold more if my jars would have been £2.00? Clearly No. People who do not like Honey will still not buy it and people who like Honey are willing to spent a bit more to get a good, local Product. They know what they get and they know the difference.

So if you charge the same price (or close) as a Supermarket Honey from EU and Non-EU Countries than you are clearly far too cheap because it does not reflect the huge difference between the Products and the work which has gone into it. Be proud of your Product and don't try to compete with the cheap Supermarket stuff.

So, £3.50 for 8oz is still fine in my eyes.

ok you've convinced me, I will go to £3 with my Autumn crop for people I know & £3.50 for any business that wants to buy any. Thanks all

Dishmop · Jun 3, 2015

Would I have sold more if my jars would have been £2.00? Clearly No.

They've seen honey for 99p in supermarkets and have no idea that what you are selling is honey and the 99p stuff is probably no more than a honey flavoured syrup.

Ely · Jun 3, 2015

jonnybeegood said:
Thanks for the detailed reply, i know i have read about people selling it for £6-£7 for a 1lb jar, so about £3.-£3.50 for 8oz i thought, but i also thought that was down south prices, things are always more expensive there.
Maybe i could get people addicted to it then put the price up?
I just feel more than £3 is ripping them off & will put some off?
I havent tried selling 1lb jars, i figure people are more likely to buy more if they finish a small jar rather than have one left in the cupboard 1/4 full.

I have tin of salmon in the cubhoard that cost me about 50p. I fancied a bit of smoked salmon this morning though and that cost me about £3.50 for a small packet. Other producers don't feel guilty charging appropriately for the quality of the product so why should we?

Roola · Jun 3, 2015

I think the problem is a lot of beekeepers undervalue honey, really agree with the post above about the work that goes into it, customers have become used to cheaper prices and hence refuse to pay more for local raw honey... often quoting the cheapness of the rotten supermarket stuff. If we actually all charged a bit more for the product then generally I think the public would get used to that as more the norm. It is then a case of quality victorious over price... I'm going to start having a cheap supermarket honey and my own at my sales for people to see the difference in flavour, we all know how much better ours tastes than the chinese syrup. I also find that most non-beekeepers have no idea about the time we put in to get our final product, when i explain this they are often rather more understanding of the price charged.

Luka22 · Jun 3, 2015

Code:

I think the problem is a lot of beekeepers undervalue honey

And that could even be a far bigger problem. When people come and tell me that they get it cheaper in the Supermarket than I can explain them why and what the difference is to the product I sell, but I recently had one telling me she bought a 1lb jar for £4 and it was local as well, I also saw a 1lb jar myself on a shelf for £4.20, but that is surely not what we can or should do....

Some people throw their product on the market cheap just to sell it. They might have a hive or 2, so their yearly costs to keep them are relatively low. So they don't not care about what they get back with their Honey.

We all know that we have a decline of Bees in the UK, but at the end of the day a lot more Hives would be needed to help, but if you try to have more you realise how the costs go through the roof. That's the reason why we started to sell the Honey. The money gets re-invested to buy more Hives, more material, more bees, not saying that we will now stop the decline just by having the few more than the more standard 1-2 Hives in the back of the garden, but its a step.

@jonnybeegood, I know that you have now understood that your product is of higher value than the £2.00, but I hope that other people will keep this conversation in mind, when they do their pricing. If you start to throw your product on the market cheap, because you don't have to worry, than someone around you might pack up one day because they can not afford it anymore and if you keep bees because you care for them and you want to help against the decline than you should help that nobody needs to take that step.

That is my view on it and I am aware that not everybody might share it.

jonnybeegood · Jun 3, 2015

Luka22 said:
Code:

I think the problem is a lot of beekeepers undervalue honey

And that could even be a far bigger problem. When people come and tell me that they get it cheaper in the Supermarket than I can explain them why and what the difference is to the product I sell, but I recently had one telling me she bought a 1lb jar for £4 and it was local as well, I also saw a 1lb jar myself on a shelf for £4.20, but that is surely not what we can or should do....

Some people throw their product on the market cheap just to sell it. They might have a hive or 2, so their yearly costs to keep them are relatively low. So they don't not care about what they get back with their Honey.

We all know that we have a decline of Bees in the UK, but at the end of the day a lot more Hives would be needed to help, but if you try to have more you realise how the costs go through the roof. That's the reason why we started to sell the Honey. The money gets re-invested to buy more Hives, more material, more bees, not saying that we will now stop the decline just by having the few more than the more standard 1-2 Hives in the back of the garden, but its a step.

@jonnybeegood, I know that you have now understood that your product is of higher value than the £2.00, but I hope that other people will keep this conversation in mind, when they do their pricing. If you start to throw your product on the market cheap, because you don't have to worry, than someone around you might pack up one day because they can not afford it anymore and if you keep bees because you care for them and you want to help against the decline than you should help that nobody needs to take that step.

That is my view on it and I am aware that not everybody might share it.

I totally agree, i only sold 15 jars to work colleagues at that price & told them next time it will be £3, hopefully they will still want it, if not i have other buyers. I dont think this will put any Beeks out of business but i see your point, its just the North south divide, theres going to be a difference in price, there shouldnt be as we all pay the same for our equipment but i think people down south will pay more.

charlievictorbravo · Jun 3, 2015

You might want to think about some differential pricing; one price for friends and family, one for wholesale, one for retail (where you have to pay for a pitch and stand around all day getting hot or cold) and another for retail doorstep sales.

CVB

tractorjohn · Jun 3, 2015

I charge £4.50 for 12oz and do get the odd customer complain that it is expensive but they keep coming back for more, a bit of education helps as most people do not know how much work is involved and equipment costs.

Thymallus · Jun 3, 2015

£5 for 12 oz, £6 for 12oz moorland £7 for 12oz heather and £7.50 for 8oz heather cut comb. Sold out of heather and cut comb until later this year.....tells it's own story.
Like many I do get the odd grumble about price, but explain what they are buying and market stall costs and they keep coming back. It's partly the selling factor, as I sometime "compete" with a guy selling 1lb jars at £4.20....funny thing is I sell more jars per market than he does....people reckon he's too cheap.
Those who don't want to buy at my prices are always welcome to shop elsewhere.

dexter's shed · Jun 3, 2015

it's easy to think it's over priced, at a farmers show last year, three of us were selling honey from the club stall, the other two members were selling 1lb jars at £6, I was selling 8oz of cut comb at £6, of course theirs were being bought left right and centre, but mine not getting noticed, they kept telling me to lower my price, but I stuck with it, as far as I'm concerned it's a quality product, I ended up taking half home and making about £100, but I'd rather do that than give it away

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