# General beekeeping > Scaling up and marketing >  Honey jars

## lindsay s

A member of our association has been trying to source a mixed order of honey jars to be sent to Orkney. One wholesaler told him that there is a shortage of standard 1lb jars due to manufacturing problems at the glass factory. Have any members of this forum come across any shortages of standard 1lb jars.

----------


## Trog

Why not use the nice hexagonal 8oz jars?  You get a much better price per lb that way as folk buy honey as presents and are quite happy to pay more for a special local honey.  We also use mini jars as children just love to spend their pocket money on a present for granny at local shows/producers' markets.

----------


## The Drone Ranger

http://www.ascott-dairy.co.uk/acatal...ts.html#aDP153

try these guys  :Smile:

----------


## Jimbo

I use Richmond Container Co who used to be located in Uddingston Glasgow but now re-located to East Kilbride.They do the 1lb honey jar with either the metal lid or plastic lid, hex jars, jam jars, pickle jars etc etc. I just go personally to pick up my jars so no delivery charge. They are a family run firm and have given me good customer service over the years. My wife also uses them for all her cosmetic products she sells eg plastic and glass tubs, pump dispensers etc. They do next day courier service but I don't know the costs. They can be contacted on tel.01355 236 170 (Gavin is it alright to give them a plug on a forum?)

----------


## gavin

Of course!  Plugs and such helpful links are welcomed.  If companies themselves with to post adverts we ask that they pay for adverts in the SB first.

----------


## lindsay s

Thanks for your help.  One of the downsides of living here is the carriage charges are expensive and that’s why some of us are ordering as a group for the first time. A variety of jars are already used here including 12oz and 8oz sizes, I myself prefer 1lb jars. As Trog says nice jars can command nice prices especially in the tourist areas.
 Dare I start a debate on rip off local honey verses cheap supermarket honey?

----------


## Neonach

> http://www.ascott-dairy.co.uk/acatal...ts.html#aDP153
> 
> try these guys


Neonachina and I now only buy from Ascott - for the jams chutneys that we sell (and we sell _lots_!). These days we just sell in the 8oz hex jars as for the vast majority of purchasers they are gifts, and the spend level is it seems just right. Even with the same £/kg for the product itself, 12oz hex or 1lb round jars would offer significantly better value for money for the purchaser - but they haven't sold well, because the actual cost is too high. The only use for 1lb round jars is for supplying a local B&BL: the price of the product is not reduced, it's just a cheaper jar, but his guests never see the jar - just the product.  Round jars have a cheap/basic association, hex with craft/speciality or if larger than 1lb then catering trade. These are the facts of the market, and it's a brave or foolish person that flies in the face of the market!

----------


## lindsay s

A beekeeping friend supplies some of the tourist shops with clear and set honey in 8oz jars and it involves him with a lot more work. A route I don’t want to go down.
 About half my honey is sold in a local chemist’s shop and it’s not exactly a tourist hot spot. But I get a good price for it and it sells very well, even in the cheap looking 500g plastic jars that I sometimes used. This shop has sold Orkney honey for many years and the locals know where to find it. I also sell quite a lot to friends who appreciate my honey and don’t care about the packaging. I’m a hobby beekeeper and in an average year I can more than cover my costs so I will stick with that.

----------


## Trog

I'd never go to the trouble of selling through shops. The discount they want doesn't make it worthwhile from my point of view.  Once the B & Bs have tried the honey at breakfast-time they buy a jar or two and locals and visitors alike know where to find me (I had to ration them all last year as we were building up nucs rather than going for honey!). Mull is a 'foodie' destination so we have lots of local producers' markets (which I don't do as they're on a Sunday) and special food festival/Christmas markets/agricultural shows, etc., at which I'll take a stall if I've any spare stocks of honey or candles.  It's great fun meeting customers face to face and I'm also able to promote beekeeping and the local association.

----------


## Neils

> Dare I start a debate on rip off local honey verses cheap supermarket honey?


 I'd put it the other way round, supermarkets driving down the prices with cheap imported honey making it very hard to get a fair price for ours  :Wink:    I don't think we should be aiming for Fortnum and Mason prices, but we sell our honey here far, far cheaper than, for example the Greek and Turkish beekeepers seem to (and not just to Tourists).  I also believe that my honey is a quality product, certainly in comparison to what the supermarkets sell and, thankfully, most of the people who want my honey seem to agree with me.

So as not to totally derail the thread I tend to get my jars from Compak, but they are pretty close to me and reasonably priced as a result. YMMV.

----------


## Adam

I sell honey in hex jars with a weight of 350g. They sell in a local shop at £3.95. I had some 454g jars which sold for £1 more but customers were reluctant to spend the extra money even though the honey was better value. We live in hard times! My prices are more than supermarkets and customers will pay the higher price for quality.

There are some people who I have spoken to who say that local honey has definitely helped with their allergies and honey from India will not do that. Honey needs to be taken for months or a year or two for it to work it seems. I assume it's the pollen in small quantities that helps the immune system build up resistance. I wonder if I could bottle and sell the sludge that blocks the fine honey strainer as a high potency anti-allergy remedy?


Here's another supplier of jars  http://www.colouredbottles.co.uk/sto...ars-hexagonal/

----------


## EmsE

> Dare I start a debate on rip off local honey verses cheap supermarket honey?


There's no comparison in mho. Having only ever tried supermarket honey I always believed that I 'didn't like honey'. That was until I was asked to be the judges assistant at our local honey show a couple of years ago. I cringed when I found out I would need to taste almost every jar! That was such an eye opener for me- the honeys were lovely nothing like the cheap blended stuff I'd had before and I could't get over the variety of flavours. I'm now a convert and no longer one of those 'strange people' Gavin referred to in another thread :Smile: .

----------


## Neils

I'm still not a huge honey fan, but most of my original "dislike" was for the bland guff passed off as honey.  I gave a few people who held similar opinion a jar of honey from each of my apiaries (only a couple of miles apart) and, like me, they were astonished at the difference; between the two jars, let alone between my stuff and the supermarket stuff.

I'll sit on my hands when it comes to expressing an opinion about honey shows though  :Big Grin:

----------


## Adam

I had some lavender honey at a hotel some time ago and it nearly blew my head off! I wasn't too keen at the time but it was a bit like lime pickle - in that there was so much going on in my senses.

----------


## chris

> I had some lavender honey at a hotel some time ago and it nearly blew my head off!


Lavender honey is the most sort after down here.But it's all a *snob* thing.Half the people can't even recognize it. I've stopped selling it now, and just go for "wild mountain flower" mix. At least that way we don't get the East Anglians coming down here sniffing the jars :Wink:

----------


## EmsE

> I'll sit on my hands when it comes to expressing an opinion about honey shows though


The local ones are good fun and a great way of getting the children interested & involved- especially in the baking categories. 
We'd like to go to the Scottish one in September to see what it's like but are busy that weekend.

----------


## Neils

Two's enough for me.  I think if I hadn't endured them from start to finish I might be a little more enthusiastic about them. Get why people want to enter them, but when you're watching some guy shine a torch through the 50th jar of honey then it starts to wear a little thin  :Big Grin:

----------


## The Drone Ranger

> Two's enough for me.  I think if I hadn't endured them from start to finish I might be a little more enthusiastic about them. Get why people want to enter them, but when you're watching some guy shine a torch through the 50th jar of honey then it starts to wear a little thin


Dundee Flower Show 
I was horribly dissapointed to find you didn't get to eat any of the honey !!
Some guys have been entering the same jars for years.
Its like a wine tasting where you don't even get to spit in a bucket wheres the fun in that?

----------

