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BeeHype Honey
BeeHype Honey is run by two young entrepreneurs with a shared love for natural foods and healthy living. They set out to create a one-of-a-kind selection of the finest craft honey and honey preserves. The carefully hand-picked honey varieties will tickle the palette of even the most passionate connoisseur. The mission is to prove that healthy natural food can also taste incredibly delicious!
We caught up with BeeHype founders Stela and Mo to discover more about the brand. Read the interview below to find out more…
How did it all start?
One of our favourite things to do is watching Shark Tank which instilled the thought in our heads that “if they can do it, why can’t we do it?”. We knew we wanted to do something big, but we just hadn’t figured out what that was yet.
We were living with Mo’s high-school friend back in 2018, and one day he received a big parcel from his parents in Bulgaria – our home country, with some “essentials”. We were wondering what was so special that he couldn’t just buy at the supermarket here. He opened the package and inside were some traditional spices, herbal teas, and… a big jar of honey. And that’s when it hit us – growing up, both of us had access to high-quality honey, straight from the hive, but in the UK we were never able to find the same taste.
We reached out to some friends back home and we managed to get a dozen of jars of different honey varieties sent over to us. We organised a blind tasting with our friends and colleagues and the results were beyond belief – they said they’d never had anything like this in their lives, they had never known the true taste of natural raw honey. What seemed like plain old honey to us back when we were kids, was so special and exotic to our friends here.
And that’s when we knew we were onto something, so we set off on our journey to create BeeHype.
The story behind the name…
BeeHype honey was created with a mission – to excite people about honey and prove that healthy, natural food can also taste incredibly delicious. That’s where the ‘hype’ part of the name comes from.
Where are you based?
We’re based in sunny Glasgow, find us at stand E51 at the local Country Living Christmas Fair and try our exquisite honey varieties.
What inspires you?
We’re big foodies, inspired by natural, healthy and delicious foods. We’re also very inspired by business owners who started from scratch and created successful businesses.
What is your best-selling product?
Our bestsellers are Lavish Lavender and Salted Honey. Lavish Lavender is bursting with flavour and has won 2-stars at the Great Taste Awards thanks to its delicate floral taste. Salted Honey is a healthy alternative to the salted caramel spreads we all love but with no refined sugar, dairy, preservatives or saturated fats and 40% fewer calories.
What makes your brand or products unique?
We partner with small, ethical beekeepers in Bulgaria – a land of four beautiful seasons, endless fields of lavender, pristine forests and untouched meadows. Thanks to this our honey is full of vibrant flavours and healthy nutrients.
Our passion for healthy foods has driven us to create healthier versions of our favourite jams, spreads and sauces. So, came the inception of the UK’s first Salted Honey – a healthy alternative to salted caramel spreads, as well as our Cacao Honey – a healthy alternative to Nutella and chocolate spreads that’s free from gluten, nuts, palm oil and refined sugar.
What are your plans for the next 12 months?
We’re now stocked in over 90 independent shops, delis and farm shops across the UK and the number of BeeHype honey lovers is growing constantly.
Our goal is to continue growing and place the BeeHype products in as many independent shops across the UK and Europe as possible so we can spread the hype further.
What is your next project?
Our latest innovation is Chilli Honey – sweet honey with a mild spicy kick that works equally well at a BBQ, as it does on a slice of toast or in porridge. We are working on some other amazing creations and we can’t wait to share them with you so make sure to follow us on social media or join our newsletter.
What is your biggest achievement?
Our biggest achievement is starting our own business at the age of 24 with no business experience, no knowledge about the food and drinks industry, and no investments or loans.
We used our skills to save as much save money as possible – Mo used the skills he learned as a teenager to make our unique labels, he learned how to use my old DSLR camera to take professional product photos and he built our e-commerce website. I was leveraging my marketing and PR background and did extensive market research, created buyer personas and wrote SEO creative copy for our products.
We were both working full-time, so we had to sacrifice our beauty sleep to keep things going. At the start, it was just afternoons, but quickly it turned to long nights, weekends and holidays. There were many points where we stopped and we thought that we are in over our heads. Against all odds, we kept pushing through the hard times and things eventually started to pick up.
What are you looking forward to most about exhibiting at the Christmas Fair?
We have very dear memories from our first Country Living Christmas Fair. It was one of the very few events in 2021, right after the big lockdowns. It provided us with the opportunity to meet our customers face to face again after almost 2 years, which was really valuable to us. We were happy to provide them with unique foodie gifts for their friends and family.
It was also very fun taking on the challenge of designing and building our stall from scratch and seeing what the fellow stall holders have done with theirs.
The Christmas Fair turned out to be very successful for us thanks to the great organisation and marketing efforts from the organisers.
We love connecting with other brilliant independent business owners and meeting fellow foodies and honey lovers.
Your three top tips for crafters and makers…
Don’t be afraid to talk about the benefits of your products. Your passion will inspire others to try them and fall in love with them too.
Don’t be afraid to take risks.
Don’t stop chasing your dreams and never be afraid to set big goals – even if they seem impossible for your small business at first.
Any advice for fledgling businesses…
Dedication and hard work can help you achieve anything so keep going!