What do you like the most about breakfast? What fetches an enlarged smile to your kid’s face in the morning? Something that struck your mind almost instantly, after hearing these questions, was pancakes glazed with delicious honey on the top and garnished with bananas.
Kids love honey, and so do elders. A multi-purpose ingredient, you can use in completely varied and delightful ways, honey never fails to attract cheers to faces.
Well, if you too are a great honey-lover and passionate about doing something big with it in your career, you are at the right place!
This complete guide will let you know, from beginning till the end, the entire procedure and essentials you would need to kick-start your honey business. With hopes high, let your business flourish with the right start, right tools, right guidance. Deliver quality and fulfill your passion. Make your customers happy, serve them right!
Let’s look into what you will need to get started with your honey business!
What You Would Need
If you love beekeeping, you would love the honey business. Before starting, you would need to put everything in order, buy the materials, know and learn about beekeeping, learn the basics of business management, and then start.
With very small investments and no professional degree, you can give rise to a successful honey business and deliver quality to your customers.
The three main ingredients in this business are-
- Shelter for your bees.
- Maintenance of the shelter and taking care of the bees.
- Obtaining honey from the beehive.
Getting Started!
The Right Knowledge First
The first thing you need to do is to acquire a good amount of knowledge of beekeeping. It is always preferred to read about bees and beekeeping from books or online. Maintaining your business will be a lot easier if you know most of the details of bee-keeping.
Learning about bees would be a lot easier if you can manage to join a beekeeping farm for some time and learn the basics first. Make sure you learn how to take care of bees and harvest honey from the hives during this stage.
Buy The Bees
Once you are done collecting the basic knowledge of bees and business, move to the next step. Essentially, for your honey business, you would need bees, of course. You obviously cannot have a honey business without having bees. It is important to get a bee colony.
Buy it or catch it on your own. Trap a wild swarming honey bee colony to establish strong honey-bee colonies around it. Get the breed of bees that are resistant to pests and this will save you loads. After finishing this step, you can move on to the next, which is to set up a plan for your business.
Set Your Plan
The next step is to create a plan. Set a roadmap on how and where to buy other equipment, the area you will, and other technical assistance. Running any business successfully, not just the honey business, requires good planning upfront. Make sure you do not miss out on any facet.
Get Your Equipment
Next up is to choose your devices and equipment, which you need to do wisely. The books you read at the start, the time you spend at the beekeeping farm, make sure you understand what kind and quality of equipment you need for your business.
Depending upon your budget, choose the quality of your devices and equipment. Choose the quantity wisely, too, and after it’s done, move on to the next step.
The Licenses
By this time you have a rough draft set up for your business. You have not entered the business world yet. Every kind of business or employment has its terms and conditions, which employers need to abide by. The same goes for your honey business, too.
Get the permit to buy bees, get the licenses imposed for harvesting, and selling honey; register your hives, and try fulfilling all the other terms and conditions as necessitated by your area or government.
Harvest And Packaging
Once you have the land, the bees, the equipment, and you have started taking care of them too, the next step that follows is how to harvest honey and then package it safely too.
The correct way to harvest honey needs to be known to avoid rendering any damage to the hives. You can also employ someone who has good experience in doing the same. Use the right equipment to harvest the sweetness.
Good packaging requires a good knowledge about the types of honey glass bottles that can be used to store and sell them. How are glass bottles made? Well, if you know the answer, you would also know their composition and how good a container they prove to be for viscous liquids like honey.
Grab the right sized and shaped glass bottle to safely pack your harvested honey.
The Seller Certification
Before selling your produce, make sure to get your product certified for consumption by the regulating body. FSSAI License is required for running all types of food business legally.
To kick-start your honey business, then you need to apply for FSSAI license and get it as soon as possible. Make sure to know and follow FSSAI labelling and packaging guidelines.
Selling it!
Next up is the most crucial step, which is to sell your honey. Start small, sell in your hometown, once good to go, and you’ve earned a good amount of revenue; you can advance your selling capacity by trying to sell the products online to areas deliverable under your capacity.
Make sure you follow all the rules and regulations desired in the business. Use digital platforms like an Instagram store, tools like social media marketing to help your business achieve new heights.
Conclusion
Starting up your own business is such a big step. Missing out on the right guide and knowledge can make you regret spending loads on the success of it.
Grow slowly, and steadily, expand gradually, achieve newer heights, but don’t ever compromise on quality.
