I attended a lecture given by Stuart Greenbank last night it was on the UK's first Honey cooperative which he and a couple of Midlands based bee keepers started in 1994. The co-operative is called "First Honey Cooperative" and it was an interesting talk. I may actually become a member, I find it difficult to sell the honey myself and these guys do the hard work. They supply the National Trust and English Heritage and various organisations including Jamie Oliver.
Stuart told us how the co-operative came about and how in the UK its unusual but in other countries its much more common, he gave examples of Australia which has a co-op that supplies 70% of all Australian honey. He told us about the difficulties his cooperative has faced historically and currently. He also told us what he hopes the co-op can bring to small and large bee keepers.
The co-op is run via volunteers and members. True "Big Society" stuff, no one receives a salary. In its annual accounts it states 0 employees and currently has 84 members and a couple of directors, it cost £14 to join. Members are from all across England and Wales none from Scotland and no suppliers from Devon and Cornwall, they have market which means they are can sell all extra honey.
When he started English honey was none existent in supermarkets, most honey sold in the UK at that time was from abroad, and he and other bee-keepers would sell their honey via the local butcher or just word and mouth. He couldn't get a premium price as the supermarkets were selling honey from China and Chile for 37p per Ib.
He also found it difficult to sell his honey and most shops would take the honey and once all was sold they would pay him. This could mean long delays in getting money back in. As he and the others were hobbyist it was not great but acceptable, however in terms of accounting for the co-operative very challenging.
He spent a great deal of time trying to get a supermarket interested in his produce to no avail but after a great deal of persistence he managed to get a deal with Nestle which owned Gales Honey and a local government project helped the co-operative get a brand together and with Gales help packaged the honey in jars for them via the Gale processing plant. However this all came to an end when toxic chemicals were found in Chinese honey and honey was removed from the shelves. The co-operative honey was also removed as it was processed at the same plant. Chinese Honey is stilled banned in the UK.
They have a brand called Bee Keeper honey which they own but have not used recently, and if they don't use it for 5 years they could lose it.
Nestle sold Gale honey to Premier Food however they weren't interested in the co-operative honey and so they have lost any supermarket presence they had at the time, it's changing now though. He described going to the plant where they bottled the co-op honey and the couple of tonnes of honey that they had brought along took minutes to bottle, he was amazed.
Stuart also told us about the problems with dealing with supermarkets, and how they need to know how much honey in advance you can supply, thats difficult as any bee keeper will tell you. You may have a good year and you could have several bad ones. Its can be very regional as well.
Since the UK had been in financial difficulties the sales of UK honey has fallen and they currently have to store much of the honey. They aren't getting a premium and people understandably want cheaper honey. They store the honey is brand new full grade barrels which are similar to oil barrels they are having to store the honey at the moment as at present supermarkets aren't interested in buying honey that they will find difficult to sell.
The URL is http://www.firsthoneyco-operative.ltd.uk/
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