Subject: Re: Looking for Honey

From: [email-masked] (Pollinator)
Date: 23 Jun 1996 00:32:25 -0400

In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Andy
Nachbaur) writes:

>Subject:	Looking for Honey
>From:	[email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
>Date:	Sat, 22 Jun 1996 15:20:00 GMT
>
>
>*FYI* Honey Wanted!
>
>                    ----------------------------------------
>From: GMN Internet Services <[email-masked]>
>To: [email-masked]
>Date: Fri, 21 Jun 1996 12:44:36 -0400 (EDT)
>Subject: Looking for Honey
>
>Dear Mr. Nachbaur,
>
>  Our client, Really Raw Honey Company, is looking for honey to purchase
>for the fall packing season, and we have agreed to help in their search.
>We would like to ask whether you are aware of beeekeepers, if not
>yourself then perhaps others, interested in marketing unprocessed
>organic honey, in either small or large quantities.  Our client's
>Web page describes in a little more detail their requirements.  It's at:
>
>http://www.erols.com/gmnins/bennett/rlraw1.htm
>
>You can also contact them directly at:
>
>Really Raw Honey Company
>1301 S. Baylis St.
>Baltimore, MD 21224
>410 675 7233 or 1-800-REALRAW
>FAX: 410 675 7411
>
>Thank you very much for any leads you can provide.
>
>Tony Notari
>GMN Internet Services

   Anyone who has dealt with this company, please comment, positively or
negatively.  I heard of one beekeeper who had a dickens of a time getting
paid.

   I have a blanket policy, in dealing with companies I don't know  --
cash at delivery.
Cuts sales, but sometimes honey is more valuable sitting in my warehouse.

   To (mis)quote an old saying:  Let the *seller* beware.

[email-masked]                                   Dave Green
Practical Pollination Home Page    
http://users.aol.com/pollinator/polpage1.html  
PO Box 1200, Hemingway, SC    29554

---

From: [email-masked] (David J Trickett)
Date: 23 Jun 1996 06:39:45 GMT

Pollinator ([email-masked]) wrote:
: In article <[email-masked]>, [email-masked] (Andy
: Nachbaur) writes:

: >Subject:	Looking for Honey
: >From:	[email-masked] (Andy Nachbaur)
: >Date:	Sat, 22 Jun 1996 15:20:00 GMT
: >
: >
: >Dear Mr. Nachbaur,
: >
: >  Our client, Really Raw Honey Company, is looking for honey to purchase
: >for the fall packing season, and we have agreed to help in their search.
: >We would like to ask whether you are aware of beeekeepers, if not
: >yourself then perhaps others, interested in marketing unprocessed
: >organic honey, in either small or large quantities.  Our client's
: >Web page describes in a little more detail their requirements.  It's at:
: >

:    Anyone who has dealt with this company, please comment, positively or
: negatively.  I heard of one beekeeper who had a dickens of a time getting
: paid.

:    I have a blanket policy, in dealing with companies I don't know  --
: cash at delivery.
: [email-masked]                                   Dave Green

This product is sold in a large portion of the mid-atlantic seaboard 
(including Philadelphia).  I find their packaging very annoying and the 
product substandard.  For the record, my own honey, which I sell as 
unprocessed and without use of miticides or antibiotics (yes I took a 
very large hit last winter and had to buy nukes this spring (but I've got 
some feral stock which survived and looks promising) is competing with 
theirs in some stores, so I'm not a disinterested observer.  

The packaging is annoying in that it claims to be the only honey on the 
market that is certified to be organic.  How they certify it, 
particularly if they've got an agent on the net requesting bids, is 
unknown to me.  I've never seen it in an ungranulated, apparently creamed 
form, so I also have to wonder about the claims of unprocessing.  Which 
leads me to the product itself. 

As I said, it is in creamed form with foreign material at the 
top and the bottom of the jar.  It looks likes they just don't 
strain it and then call the resulting mess "really raw."  One problem 
with this is some of that material (e.g., bees, wax moth larva) contains 
water and that water will eventually be absorbed into the honey and upset 
the constraints against fermentation.  I've seen this in one of their 
jars at a supermarket.  The contents had oozed out of the closed jar and 
fermentation had or was occurring, as evidenced by the meady smell.

In a nutshell, I think they are misleading the public and doing 
beekeepers a disservice.  The implications of their packaging and their 
product are that truly raw honey must be granulated and look creamy but be 
full of impurities.  THis is not what happens to strained but otherwise 
unprocessed honey (as you all know).  Hence, consumers are being 
conditioned by this product to have false expectations regarding 
unprocessed honey.  Moreover, they are reaping an unfair market 
advantage by asserting that their product is organic.  [We've 
had THAT discussion on this newsgroup so I won't waste any 
space on it.]

Personally, I wouldn't deal with them, and am not having too much trouble
competing with them.  Minimally, I'd ask to see their packaging before I'd
let them sell my honey as their own. 

Dave Trickett

P.S. These are my own comments and do not in anyway represent the opinion 
or position of the University of Pennsylvania on this or any other matters.

---

From: [email-masked] (Adam Finkelstein)
Date: 24 Jun 1996 22:54:23 GMT

>negatively.  I heard of one beekeeper who had a dickens of a time getting

Great. I had a run in with these guys once: challenged them to define 
"organic" honey to me. Since in Virginia, an "organic" product needs to be
>from  a certified producer. They failed to provide me with their organic
certification, and then proceeded to tell me that their honey "was
organic".

Local Virginia producers cannot call their honey as "organic" so why should
Really Raw?

your mileage may vary.
Adam
-- 
_________________
Adam Finkelstein                    
[email-masked]