Honey prices 2013

£4.80 for a beautifully presented and labelled 8 oz hexagonal jar, Same but 2 different apiary honeys in a presentation box £12.00.

Got to admit presentation makes it... some others labels ( and product !) are so naff it makes the honey in one local "garden centre" outlet look like marmalade... badly stored and crystallised.

I keep my honey cider and mead for myself !

honey

Ive started selling mine at £5 for a 12onz jar it seems reasonable enough to me after all the cost of looking after them, feeding, treatments etc.

If no one wants it i'll eat it myself.

Dave W

I think people will pay nearly anything for that first jar.
Its the repeat business that's important though.
I want people coming back to me and not to a supermarket,
so my prices have to be competitive ... I think

ni.prices

my honey sell's for £4.50 for 8oz hex jar Irish floral

I am thinking about reducing my honey to £4 per 12oz next year.

What drives you?
I am at £4 / lb I doubt I could get more for my location and the amount of doorstep trade I can attract. Is it better to sell it all (just) or end up with some old stuff hanging around? This year have sold about 80, gifted about 25, remainder about 15 (so far). Would I have sold the same (with some reasonable repeat trade in the mix) at £4.50 or £5? now there's the question.
Happy at £4 and any income is a bonus. Would I still be keeping with no honey income? well yes actually. Income is probably a bonus not a driver for most hobby beeks. I partly measure my success by getting a crop, being able to get rid of it at a better than cost neutral price is useful.

Rosti said:

Income is probably a bonus not a driver for most hobby beeks.

Click to expand...

Which is exactly what spoils the market for those who need to earn a fair price to contribute to the family income. Must be the only commodity in the country where it's so hard to make fair money for an excellent product because so many don't give a fig about making a justified income - or have no value on their time.

Selling mine for £5.00 a 12 oz jar with plenty of return custom, one little old lady ordered another four tonight and it's doing a steady turnover at the butcher's shop.
At the Neath food fair last month we cleared a hundredweight in 12oz jars in four hours or so and we coulld have sold more, plus I sold all my cut comb at £6.00 for half a pound. People don't mind paying for decent quality so why undersell it?

Honey is a bonus to me and I dislike the process of extracting jarring and even the selling bit although that has its advantages.

I can get a lot more for my honey if I put in the effort but I just sooner be doing other things. I have been lucky for the past couple of years a 3rd party has sold all my honey through a farmers market giving me 4.50 12oz jar and they sell it for 6.50 but that looks as though it has come to a stop. I do sell some myself and will continue to do so, my best order was for 20 jars and someone is talking about 10 and they are the customers I want.

I have one avenue open to me and they may be interested but I would sooner fix a good price now for the majority of next year’s crop than the hassle of selling it all drip by drip.

There is only so much mead I can make

Tom Bick said:

There is only so much mead I can make

Click to expand...

I think a correction needed
It's
There is only so much mead I can DRINK

All you require is help to drink the surplus

Price of honey

susbees said:

Which is exactly what spoils the market for those who need to earn a fair price to contribute to the family income. Must be the only commodity in the country where it's so hard to make fair money for an excellent product because so many don't give a fig about making a justified income - or have no value on their time.

Click to expand...

I quit agree I charge £4-50-lb at the door £4.25 to Super Market they sell @£5.29-lb no problem selling , Now local farm shop selling Gloucester Honey Jarred Labelled £3.75 lb What's the matter can't they sell honey in Gloucestershire for a decent price

I sell mine to the local farm shop for £4.50 per 12 oz jar and they put it on the shelves for £5.99.

.
I try to keep my honey price -20% under shop price.
My main point is to keep big customers satisfied and keep them for ever.
Good customers consume 10-50 kg honey per year.

Here in the capital city almost few pick honey from home. It is not habit here.

Pressure of foreigh honey is heavy against domestic honey. If I take best prices from honey, first I loose my best customers. They will search another beekeeper.

susbees said:

Which is exactly what spoils the market for those who need to earn a fair price to contribute to the family income. Must be the only commodity in the country where it's so hard to make fair money for an excellent product because so many don't give a fig about making a justified income - or have no value on their time.

Click to expand...

MY SENTIMENTS EXACTLY. it is justified income from a job well done, and a wonderful food provided

I understand where you are coming from, but consumers (in the main) want the lowest prices. Only if you can sell the wonders of local, raw honey can you get a good price.

Look at the dairy farmers. In the 1980's milk was 25p a pint from my local supermarket. It is now 89p for 4 pints. In 3 decades the price should (following a normal economic rule of thumb) gone up 8x (2x per decade, compounded). So a pint should be £2. The consumer has chosen cheap milk from anywhere to locally grown, British milk from small farms.

Here I am lucky, I have a few outlets where local honey is really appreciated - £5 for 12oz.

The push for low prices continues... Tesco is being undercut by Lidl and Aldi.