When we last visited Flynn and his Honey Enterprise, he had just acquired 90kgs of quality raw honey from his Grandad’s bee hives in Geraldton. Flynn had also placed a bulk order for plastic honey pots. He was now ready to fill them up and make his first sale!
Warming the honey.
Honey pots ready to fill.
His honey was held in buckets that weighed over 10kgs. To get the honey from the buckets into the 400gm honey pots was not going to be that easy. Firstly the honey was very thick, making it tedious to decanter into the pots, and secondly it required strength to hold the honey bucket for pouring.
The production line.
Quick! Gimme another pot!
Flynn called on his mates to help. He poured the buckets into a large pot and heated it to 50 degree Celsius. This temperature wasn’t high enough to destroy the enzymes that make raw honey so beneficial, but it was high enough to make the honey fluid.
Mmmm... smells good!
Giving each pot a rinse in fresh water.
The kitchen table was wiped down and set up for the honey pot production line. The team were excited about finally seeing the product in the pots. I helped pour, whilst Flynn and his gang filled and capped jars. The jars were washed on the outside to ensure there was no stickiness and then labelled with Flynn’s “Howitt’s Honey” labels.
First batch stacked and ready to label.
The labels!
Flynn’s product looked clean, pure and professional. He understood that to get a market edge and to be able to sell his honey for a premium, his first class product needed to be well packaged and hygienic.
Flynn carefully drew up a poster pointing out the benefits of his product. This he attached to the boxes containing the honey pots. He had researched what honey sells for in the shops and online. He worked out what he could sell his honey for and still make a decent return. To provided an incentive to customers, he offered a special price if they bought more than one pot at a time. Marketing his honey required little effort. In fact visitors to our home took an interest in his honey and his honey began to sell. He gained permission from his school Principal and left a box in their staffroom. He organized with a teacher friend of ours from another school, to place a box in their staffroom, and he approached the local General Store where he was allowed to sell his pots of honey for a small commission.
Developing the brand "Howitt's Honey".
Flynn's first sale!!
His honey was selling well and it wasn’t long before he needed to re-stock all his boxes. As word got out about his product, people even began placing small orders via the telephone.
Flynn’s “Howitt’s Honey” business went very well except for one problem which I’ll explain here…
Raw honey has many health benefits that you would be hard pressed to find with processed honey. However, a downside with raw honey is that, over time, it will candy (begin to solidify). This occurs especially when the room temperature drops, like during winter. Flynn’s honey that had been waiting to be sold began to candy in the honey pots. People don’t generally want to buy honey that has hardened (hence why commercial honey producers process their honey using heat, as this stops it from candying).
Luckily this problem only happened to the last remaining pots that had been awaiting sale. He brought these home, opened them up and scraped the honey into a pot and heated it back to 50 degrees. This again, liquidized the honey and he returned it to the pots. We bought those last pots for our family. The lesson learned was that Flynn needs to sell his raw honey product before it shows signs of candying and he needed to inform his customers as to what to do if their honey does so.
Profits from Flynn's Honey Enterprise
Flynn’s net profit from his honey enterprise was outstanding!! He achieved his goal that he set before he embarked, plus much more. He learned many lessons along the way and recognized that it was a lot of work, but satisfying work! Flynn has become an expert in the honey business and has gained enormous skills and understandings of how to run an enterprise.
Flynn may now be ready to take his honey enterprise to another level. We hope to guide Flynn to move from being a small business owner to being an entrepreneur! How we do that will be shared in another Enterprise for Kids blog!
For those of you interested in having your own honey enterprise, or you would like your own bee hive for a regular supply of raw honey for your family and friends; then you could seek out an expert (such as Flynn or his Grandad) to get you started, or do a course. Or you could simply download an ebook written by a professional to your kindle. Here is one I found that looks like it covers everything anyone would need to know.
Our next post will definitely energize you! We met an inspirational man who presented “tips to being highly successful” that are well worth thinking about!
We would love to hear from you all, so please leave a comment!
