Exploring the economic impacts of selling alternative sizes of comb honey for hobbyist beekeepers.

Shelby Kittle Author

04/04/2021 Added

5 Plays

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This project looked at how hobby beekeepers can change their income by producing products from scraps left after creating one pound comb honey squares.

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[00:00:01.510]Hello everybody.
[00:00:02.343]My name is Shelby Kittle,
[00:00:03.500]and today I'll be presenting my
[00:00:05.450]2020 Comb Honey Sale UCARE Project.
[00:00:09.470]And my topic was "Exploring the economic impact
[00:00:12.360]of selling alternative sizes of comb honey
[00:00:14.540]for hobbyist beekeepers".
[00:00:17.280]So in order to sell comb honey
[00:00:19.300]the entire surface must be capped
[00:00:21.030]for the product to be shelf stable.
[00:00:22.990]Ideally, every frame is completely capped and full of honey
[00:00:27.570]but unfortunately this is not always the case.
[00:00:30.450]If comb honey has to be harvested
[00:00:34.640]before the entire surface is capped
[00:00:36.590]it doesn't always make a shelf stable
[00:00:38.320]one pound square of honey.
[00:00:41.040]And this research project was analyzing alternative ways to
[00:00:44.340]sell the remaining area that is capped,
[00:00:46.240]but can't fill a one pound container.
[00:00:50.110]So that's like the center two squares
[00:00:53.450]on that image to the left.
[00:00:57.500]So my objective was "To determine
[00:00:59.760]if selling and marketing alternative sizes of comb honey
[00:01:03.120]as an economically viable way
[00:01:04.693]of best utilizing capped comb honey".
[00:01:07.680]My hypothesis was that "Selling alternative sizes
[00:01:10.520]of comb honey, other than the standard one pound box
[00:01:13.570]will increase production product profitability compared
[00:01:17.070]to simply throwing away pieces that do not fit
[00:01:19.410]in the one pan container",
[00:01:21.360]and potential implications for this project
[00:01:23.637]"highlights how beekeepers may refine businesses
[00:01:26.220]decisions related
[00:01:27.270]to product creation when marketing comb honey
[00:01:30.010]as an economically profitable product".
[00:01:33.200]So I sold this comb honey
[00:01:35.820]from August 20th. Sorry.
[00:01:37.910]August 2020 to April 2021. The ideal frame is the top image,
[00:01:43.880]and that is a fully capped frame
[00:01:45.640]but there's still extra around the bottom
[00:01:47.840]and the right side that could still be utilized.
[00:01:52.570]The lesser ideal image is the bottom left,
[00:01:55.980]where there should be four, one pound squares,
[00:01:58.970]but there's not because the two center ones
[00:02:01.690]are almost half uncapped.
[00:02:04.530]So one box...
[00:02:05.910]One pound box is a standard size for comb honey.
[00:02:09.050]And that is the equivalent space of the black squares.
[00:02:12.590]And so we have to figure
[00:02:14.030]out what happens if there's extra and what happens
[00:02:16.930]to the pieces that can't fit in the one pound box.
[00:02:20.980]So I created three sizes instead of one.
[00:02:24.480]In the very left container is the standard
[00:02:27.440]one pound comb honey box, and then the center one
[00:02:31.660]with the blue lid is the small two ounce comb honey,
[00:02:35.600]and then on the very right is a sample cup,
[00:02:40.020]and I call them bite-sized comb honeys,
[00:02:42.920]that people don't assume that they are free.
[00:02:46.040]I marketed through wholesale and retail sales.
[00:02:49.470]Retail sales is directly
[00:02:51.220]to the customer from me to them.
[00:02:54.830]A wholesale is sold by another business
[00:02:57.120]such as Chandler's Sandhill Honey, Helgoth's Pumpkin Patch,
[00:03:00.850]From Nebraska Gift Store or Speeds Apple Market.
[00:03:04.930]The, all four of those are vendors that wholesale my honey.
[00:03:11.000]And then I evaluated the sales data
[00:03:13.200]at the end of the selling season.
[00:03:14.770]So this includes product price, expenses and profit.
[00:03:18.700]Wholesale versus retail and final evaluation of the profits.
[00:03:24.560]So with wholesale
[00:03:26.650]you have to sell larger quantities at a time.
[00:03:29.970]You must make periodic deliveries,
[00:03:32.080]either biweekly or monthly. Considerations for the needs
[00:03:37.120]of the retailer must be taken into consideration.
[00:03:40.570]And then retailers are responsible for advertising
[00:03:44.610]which is a plus, and then smaller profit margins
[00:03:48.190]on individual products are expected
[00:03:50.220]because the retailer has to make a profit as well.
[00:03:54.130]So with retail, it is individual sales.
[00:03:57.650]You might work with each customer one-on-one
[00:04:00.580]and it can potentially be more labor-intensive.
[00:04:04.650]It's typically advertised
[00:04:06.140]by word of mouth and larger profit margins
[00:04:09.170]on individual products are expected
[00:04:12.020]but you might include the cost of a booth
[00:04:15.310]or you have to have a breakeven point when you go
[00:04:18.570]to an event and you must include the cost
[00:04:21.160]of labor for attending those events.
[00:04:24.870]So for each product, I evaluated each individual expense
[00:04:30.200]and you can see those prices in the center columns,
[00:04:35.060]that center two columns
[00:04:36.740]and then the total expenses are
[00:04:38.170]really what we're working with.
[00:04:40.560]So for retail price, I have my bite-sized price at $1
[00:04:44.680]and that has a profit margin of 74%
[00:04:49.300]and then wholesale, it is marked down to $0.50
[00:04:52.660]and I recommended that my vendors retail it
[00:04:56.150]for a $1 as well.
[00:04:57.720]And so I'm only making 49% profit out of that.
[00:05:01.580]A small two ounce comb honeys.
[00:05:03.520]You can see the expenses, but our total expenses
[00:05:06.380]per unit is a dollar...
[00:05:08.217]$1.11, and so retail, I sold that for $5
[00:05:13.260]with a 78% profit margin. Wholesale it's $2.50
[00:05:18.200]with my vendors marking it up to my retail price.
[00:05:21.260]And so I'd only make 56% profit margin.
[00:05:25.700]My one pound comb honeys, the total is $6.94 in expenses.
[00:05:31.530]I retail that for $15.
[00:05:33.270]So I'd make 56% profit margin and our wholesale is $10.
[00:05:37.640]So I only make 31% profit margin on that.
[00:05:42.020]So here you can see the total
[00:05:44.260]for both wholesale and retail
[00:05:48.260]sales is $1,565. 00
[00:05:52.170]Our total expenses were $985.48.
[00:05:56.300]So that leaves us with a profit
[00:05:57.750]of $579.52 for the one pound comb honeys.
[00:06:03.720]So for our small two ounce comb honeys
[00:06:05.770]both wholesale and retail, we made $450 total.
[00:06:10.870]With $169.83 and expenses.
[00:06:14.670]So that leaves us with $280.17 of profit from that size.
[00:06:21.880]And then on this one, the bite-size
[00:06:23.920]our total sales was $371.50.
[00:06:29.570]We had $156 worth of expenses.
[00:06:33.430]So that left us with $215.50 of profit.
[00:06:38.880]So what I really want to point out is
[00:06:40.560]that our main product is the one pound comb honey
[00:06:43.510]and the bite-size
[00:06:44.343]and the small squares are extra on top of that.
[00:06:48.410]So that is
[00:06:49.470]approximately $495.67
[00:06:55.510]of extra income that we're creating just
[00:06:58.500]from selling those other two sizes.
[00:07:01.350]So selling to smaller sizes allows
[00:07:04.600]for scraps to be utilized.
[00:07:06.950]People who don't know what comb honey is
[00:07:08.920]will typically buy a smaller size to try
[00:07:11.890]especially the bite-size samples.
[00:07:15.649]It's added profits
[00:07:17.160]from secondary products is definitely worth creating.
[00:07:20.720]I did decide to increase prices on my one pound comb
[00:07:24.940]honeys after evaluating profit margins through this activity
[00:07:29.190]and I will continue to create small comb
[00:07:31.760]honey, and bite size comb honey units of sale.
[00:07:37.340]Some of the limitations for this experiment was
[00:07:39.667]the smaller products are created in larger quantities.
[00:07:42.580]The business owner has to be able to sell them in order
[00:07:45.310]for secondary products to be worth creating.
[00:07:48.260]Different areas of Nebraska
[00:07:49.920]or even the country could potentially be better
[00:07:52.840]or worse for selling smaller sizes of comb honey
[00:07:56.160]and the vendors need to address
[00:07:57.410]if they have enough time to create
[00:07:58.950]and sell these extra products for their business.
[00:08:01.960]So my future plans are to continue to operate
[00:08:04.710]and expand my business
[00:08:05.850]and find more ways of increasing profitability.

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Exploring the economic impacts of selling alternative sizes of comb honey for hobbyist beekeepers.

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