WINTERBURN, Alta. – Bob McKenzie can laugh about it now, but when he began selling honey to Japan he made the classic mistakes.
He thought he’d be clever and label his jars in Japanese.
Wrong. If the Japanese are going to buy something foreign, they want it to look foreign – with English print.
He spent $20,000 designing and manufacturing a fancy squeeze bottle, perfect for the discriminating Japanese table.
Wrong. Asians don’t normally use honey as a spread. They use honey as a medicinal tonic in their tea or with hot water.
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He designed a fancy gift box of honey for Japanese tourists visiting Canada. Black on the outside and lined with red paper – very Asian looking.
Wrong. If tourists are going to buy a Canadian souvenir, they want a wooden moose or a photo of the Rocky Mountains, not something that looks like they bought it in Tokyo.
Despite the problems, his experience selling into Japan improved the product, refined the label and honed his skills, said McKenzie.
“The Japanese market is extremely tough, but a great training ground.”
When he finally began selling his products in the United States and Korea, it seemed easy.
It was just over 10 years ago when McKenzie left his high-paying job as a government engineer and jumped “cold turkey” into beekeeping.
Took it personally
McKenzie admits he wasn’t good at it and almost “starved to death.” He was too fussy.
“I knew them all by name and would tuck them all in.”
While that extra attention to detail didn’t pay in the bee yard, it’s important when selling honey.
In 1983 he sold his hives and concentrated on selling the honey from local producers. His wife, Doris, was working at the local Safeway store and would bring gifts of honey to her friends.
Soon, the produce manager was featuring McKenzie’s Country Farm Honey in store displays and sales were brisk. Eventually, their honey was listed with the grocery chain. Listing is a loose, verbal agreement that the company will buy the product. There is no guarantee the chain will continue buying, but it’s an important step.
The McKenzie’s product is now sold through several Canadian co-operatives and health food stores. They are finalizing a contract with an airline to feature their honey on overseas flights.
Specialized markets
In the past, the company has done co-packing of generic house brands of honey from the plant on the farm south of Edmonton. Selling bulk honey is competitive, for little return and little personal satisfaction, said McKenzie. They now focus on selling into specialized markets.
They sell several products including a natural, unprocessed honey in old-fashioned mason jars, fireweed honey, and a new 10,000-jar contract to supply a honey mixture to Korea. It’s a combination of honey, bee pollen, apricot and oranges. They also have custom-mixed honey with strawberries or honey and ginseng for clients.
“We’ve found a niche where we don’t have to compete on volume with the big boys,” said McKenzie.
But success doesn’t come easily. For the first seven years, McKenzie worked 16 hours a day, seven days a week. It’s only been the last few years that he’s had a more regular work schedule.
It took more than four years to get his honey listed in Safeway. Often stores will offer shelf space, but it’s up to the producer to get it off the shelf through advertising, in-store demonstrations, discounts and promotions.
“It’s quite overwhelming what it can cost to promote,” McKenzie said.
In some stores, 30 to 40 percent of the profit goes for promotion.
As well, price wars at the large grocery stores in Alberta have cut into McKenzie’s profits, he said. His wholesale prices have stayed the same for three years, but the cost of honey has gone up 50 percent and the cost of cartons has risen 70 percent.
Although McKenzie is careful not to give away company secrets, he said his sales are more than six times what they were when he began. There are still only two employees running the business, but that seems to suit him for now. McKenzie wants the operation to grow at a slow, steady pace, with no plans for “a big empire.”
