# How much to sell home produced honey for by the oz??



## LampBurner

I plan to sell a few jars of honey to some people I work with. Doing this for the 1st time. I went to Office Depot and got a small bound hand fille in the blank reciept booklet. I want to try to be all legal about this. Selling in various sizes glass jars other things came in and putting the honey in after santizizing, well nevermind all that unnecessary discribing. I'll cut to the chase. 
I'm going to sell it by the ounce and I have been trying to get a close enough idea how much money per ounce to sell it by. I know price is not etched in stone, but what is it typically going for roughly?
Then, is home produced honey typically sold by liquid ounce or by weight ounce? Or are they one and the same?
Am I doing this right by takeing a piticular jar of not knowing what size it is, and filling it with water then pouring it into a liquid measuring cup and determinating the oz capicity of that jar by the markings on the measuring cup it fills it up to, and thel labeling how many ounces of honey will be in that jar by that?, Or do I need to use some scales and sell it by weight and not liquid volume? And thanks for any educational advice.
LampBurner


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## brac

Where to start, no most honey is priced/sold by the pound then the products are labeled in ounces. Honey is heavier than water. It just sounds like you are over thinking things. Choose a jar that you like, weigh one empty, fill and weigh again.


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## alpha6

Yeah, what brac said. You can sell it by the lb for anywhere between $5 and $15 per lb depending on what the local economy will support.


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## gone2seed

Here in the ghettos of northwest Florida I get 4.00 per pint and 7.00 per quart.I quess that would be roughly 
22 1/2 cents per ounce.This is a known poverty pocket.


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## LampBurner

Thanks. I really don't even need to purchase any scales right now anyway. I work in produce at a supermarket. I think I can just use the hanging scales we have there to do my weighing, long as I don't do a bunch at one time.


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## Daniel Y

All prices I have seen are by the pound. but that can be broken down to the ounce. Some of the highest prices I have seen are $15 to $16 a pound. Without going into to much detail how to get $16 a lb I will just say you have to market it to customers that will pay that. Selling honey at 22 cents an ounce is a lot less work than selling it at $1 an ounce. You can sell for more but you will work to earn it. Just where the balance point is for you will depend on what you have to do.

Some other issues that crossed my mind. Making a bottle of honey takes almost exactly the same amount of time regardless of the size of the bottle. Supers have to be removed, honey has to be extracted. bottles have to be ordered, received, cleaned and whatever other processing is necessary. honey has to be poured in to the bottled and they have to be capped. The only time factor involved is it may take a few more seconds to pour 16 oz of honey than it takes to pour 1. But I doubt it is by much. More care must be taken to pour a tiny 1 oz of honey sort of diluting that times savings.

Given all other labor is the same. How many repetitions of pouring and capping do you want to go through? Lets say you have 100 lbs of honey. do you want to pour and cap 100 jars or 1600 jars?

With that comparison in mind, realize that a 1oz jar costs you far more per oz than a 1 lb jar. You must sell it for more and still probably make less profit.

I would see a 1 oz jar as more of a promotional item than a sales item. Basically a sample of my honey rather than something to try and market. Advertising is expensive but usually worth it.


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## Fl_Beak

1lb seems to be our most popular. We do raw, pure, antibiotic free and sell out @ $10/lb. But as mentioned, people will spend what they can. $10 may be more or less than your local market supports.


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## sqkcrk

If you are selling by the ounce, how big a jar are you using? One ounce jars? Mayonaisse jars? Baby food jars? Mason jars?


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## LampBurner

I have been using glass jars of differient sizes I have been saveing over the last year or so. Such things origionally came in them as peanut butter, saurkraut, olives, jams/jellys, and honey. Yesterday I sold 2 jars saurkraut origionally came in that were 32 oz each for $10.00 each. From after reading the last few posts, it looks like I might have sold them for too low. Thats $5.00 a pound which is rock bottom, from what apha6 wrote in post #3. I know the buyers were overjoyed. One of them even forced 1 more dollar on me. I dont have so much to sell anyway till next season. If home produced honey is going for between $5.00 and $15.00 per pound, I should begin to shoot for midway between that. The store I work at sells 32 oz plastic jars of Sue Bee honey at $8.99 per jar.


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## brac

You are not selling the same product as sue bee, so that price is irrelavent.


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## Rex Piscator

We sold 12 oz clear plastic bears @7.00$ and 6oz. clear plastic bears @3.50$. This is a backyard hobby for us. At those price points...moved quickly; lol.

Local supermarkets were selling 12oz at ~ 7.50$ish.

I would check your local stores and see what the market will support, or what your 'competition's' price point is starting at.


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## LampBurner

I think the thing for me to do (since I have been selling directly to the consumer) is to find out what the same quality honey is selling for at farmers market or wherever such is sold, then sell it for just a little less, like perhaps just a quarter or less.
Brac I know my honey is not in comparison with Sue Bee, just my only thinking about that was whatever Sue Bee sells for, I would know mine should certainly sell for more. To a beginner that hadn't hardly a clue what to sell their product for, but does know what they have, that was relevant imformation.


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## NY_BLUES

Why would you try to intentionally undercut your profit for selling it for less than other beeks? Why not charge the same price? We as beekeepers are our own worst enemy, by undercutting the competition, we drive the price down on our product. You are talking about a quarter here, not a lot of money, but the consumer will remember.
Also, just a word of advice, dont sell honey to a consumer in a preused jar. Honey jars are cheap, and easily obtained. Try your local walmart for new mason jars, but by no means sell a consumer honey from a used mayonaise or saurkruat jar!


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## sqkcrk

In light of the Ultrafiltration expose' we local producers should be raising our prices to distinguish ours from theirs. Take advantage of current cercumstances to gain market share a better price. If you have the honey.


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## LampBurner

NY Blues and sqkcrk, you are absolutly right. If I am going to spend money on new container for every jar I sell, I can and should just figure that cost into the price.
As for undercutting in priceing, I don't know what was I thinking. If I look around, (we) local honey producers are few and far apart. For that reason, I think we are not in compitation with each other, at least at this point in time and may never will be. Therefore I see no reason to undercut other local honey pruducers price by even a little bit. Perhaps maybe even go up in price. 
With all the comments made here, I sort of regret to say that I still am feeling around and stabbing in the dark as far as what to charge, and might kind of always will. I do have much more of a grasp on it than I did. I might not really need put too much emphisis on it. So far, all this has been on very small scale anyway. I have actually only sold 4 jars and that could be it till next harvest, and I have the welfare of the bees in mind more than makeing money anyway.


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## TWall

When I use to work with farmers who were starting out direct marketing crops pricing was always a challenge. Many said they wouldn't charge more than what they would pay. The value to the consumer is usually greater than the producer. A farmer with 20 acres of sweet corn is not going to pay very much for sweet corn!

Tom


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## BeeMan_2010

Lamp Burner, I am about 95 miles North of you in west central KY . When you said you said you want to sell by the oz I assume you were going to price by the oz. ok first of all honey is sold by weight not fluid oz. What was said about re-useing other food jar is right! that is a no no. I sell most of my honey in 1# honey jar jars and label cost about $.85 enough of that .

There no need to weight you jars if you buy you jars from a supplier or use Mason canning jars you will know the liquid oz. ok the pacific gravity of honey is 1.36 and water is 1 so you see honey is some what heaver than water or your liquid oz. what ever you fluid oz of the jar you are useing you would X the container oz by 1.36 that would = your honey weight. Example pint jar is 16 oz. 16X1.36=21.76= 22 oz honey; Qt jar 32 oz X 1.36 = 44 oz honey. This should help. Honey in my area sells for $.42 to $.50 a oz. makeing it $5.00 to $6.00 a pound. Your market may stand more than that.

Labeling is something else you have to have your product name ( Honey ) you name, address, phone # , weight in at least two amounts. I label my in oz and gr. that way it's not confuseing with lb. and oz. because 1# of honey is 12 oz. hope this helps and good luck.

Shirley


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## Bsweet

Brac is right, Sue Bee buys thousands of pounds from hundreds of suppliers, it is blended , mixed and heated. Most home grown honey is sold pure and unheated and a much better buy even at the higher price that it can sell for. Don't base your price on shelf honey at any large store, contact local beekeepers and find what they get localy and work your price around that. Jim


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## Mike Gillmore

You should get into the routine of selling your honey by the lb. - Net Wt. If you plan to move forward using random jars of varying volumes this is what I would suggest you do to keep it simple. 

First, I think you understand that fluid ounces and ounces by weight are not the same with honey. 
Example: If you take a 1 lb (*Net wt. - 16 oz*.) jar of honey you buy at the grocery store and pour it into a liquid measuring cup it will fill the cup to between about 10.5 - 11 oz. Use that as your baseline when measuring out honey in liquid fl. oz. containers - 11 fl oz = 1 lb of honey. (*Net wt. - 16 oz.*)
If your container holds 22 fl. oz. of honey it is 2 lbs. - or (*Net wt - 32 oz.*)
A quart jar filled all the way to the top holds 32 fl. oz of honey and is about 3 lbs. - or (*Net wt. - 48 oz.*)

You can measure out the honey in liquid measuring cups, but do the conversion and label your jars by weight - *Net Wt.*

Hope this helps and did not confuse the issue further.


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## honeybeekeeper

BeeMan_2010 said:


> Honey in my area sells for $.42 to $.50 a oz. makeing it $5.00 to $6.00 a pound. Your market may stand more than that.


Honey in central ky sold for $7 a pound with no problem at all!! So yeah the market can with stand alil more!


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## sqkcrk

Daniel Y said:


> All prices I have seen are by the pound. but that can be broken down to the ounce.


You must have missed seeing some of the most common sized containers, the 8 oz jar and the 12 oz Squeeze Bear. Labels are suppsoed to feature lbs as well as ozs. such as 1Lb (16 oz).


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## cg3

Ohio wants the weight in grams too. 1 lb= 454g


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## Adrian Quiney WI

I have no advice on price, but my customers really like the squeeze PET jars that come from Sailor Plastics with the no-drip cap. Glass is heavy, doesn't bounce, and I have no plans to ever buy mason jars again.


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## Kristen beck

In Southern Oregon we sell our honey for $4.00 for half pound, 8 for a pound and 12 for 2 pound. for a quart of honey it's $17. We have ours in a gourmet grocery store and at a growers stand plus we sell out of our home. nobody has ever balked at the price and frankly if they did they could go elsewhere. our honey is beautiful and worth the price. It's filtered but just through a double sieve, not heated unless it gets chrystally then we put it in our car for a couple hours to warm it that way. My aunt and uncle pay 15 per pound in Sebastopal california and they are ok with that. they were over the moon to get ours for $12 for 2lb's. Don't undercut your fellow beeks, it's just frowned upon.


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## Mbeck

You sold honey to family???
I didnt think that the Beck clan did that!!!
Hehehe!


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## scdw43

You can buy it all day long in SC for $8.00 per quart. At a farmers market that charges $25.00 a table, for four hours. Person pays $25 dollars for a table, $6 for gas to get there and back, spends 5 hours of their time at $10 per hour that is $81 dollars spent. You have to sell at least 8 jars to break even. There will be 12 other people selling at the same market. I had rather let the bees keep it and sell the bees. Eight dollars a quart is $2.66 per pound there are commercial beekeepers on this forum that will sell you barrels of honey for that price and be glad to get it. If I could get $8.00 per pound I would work bees 24 hours a day. A well managed hive will make 50 pounds of honey anywhere in the US, that is $400 per hive. Thousand hives $400,000 dollars, maybe I need to move.


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## casinoken

Wow! I am amazed at the pricing differences u guys are quoting. In Mississippi, the average price runs $10 per pound, and that is what I make my base price on. I figure in the cost of jars, etc. and set the price on individual sizes accordingly. Our local CoOp has honey from a couple of local beeks that runs in the $15 to $20 per pound after their mark up. A lot of my customers complain about that price and are happy to pay only $10 per pound. If I could get pure raw honey from a beek for $5 per pound, I would have to jump on that and turn around and resell it. And this is coming from "the poorest state in the nation".


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## heartlandblueberries

I try and keep the price reasonable, but the price gets cheaper the larger the purchase. I carry 6, 12, and 24 oz squeezable bears for $3, $5, and $8 respectably. I will sell a quart in a glass jar for $15 (3lb). I normally don't sell larger than that, but I may sell gallons this year for $40. I sell at the local farmers market and also out of the house. You would be suprised how much you can sell locally with Facebook and such. I will never be desperate enough to undercut the price, cause you can always carry it over from year to year.


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## Seymore

Ok, stupid question... Why not reuse food jars? I have yet to sell any honey but recycling glass jars seemed logical to me.


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## sqkcrk

It's done all the time. Folks use all sorts of previously used jars and bottles. Wine bottles, whiskey bottles, babyfood jars, mayonaisse jars, peanut butter jars, etc. Peanut butter jars, the big plastic ones, are the same jar as 5lb plastic honey jars.

I can imagine a Farm Market display table w/ lots of different jars of honey, each properly labeled, would look quite quaint and attractive. Go for it.


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## Brader

I put a lot of time, money and energy into my bees which I love! .22 cent an ounce is a ridiculous low price! I sell 16oz jars of honey retail for $15.00 it is excellent honey, and here in western NC where I live I sell sourwood honey for $20 a 16oz jar. Sourwood is not available here every summer. It depends on the weather conditions whether there is plenty of nectar or not. Real raw local honey is not what you buy in grocery stores, it mostly comes from China! Not real honey! Take pride in your bees and honey! Sell accordingly!


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## gator75

Well, that was 9 years ago.


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## Newbeek2021

Seems to me as a whole everyone should up their pricing. Eventually the market would all rise & create a new "normal $"


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## E.T.'sBees

Newbeek2021 said:


> Seems to me as a whole everyone should up their pricing. Eventually the market would all rise & create a new "normal $"


If the price is really high it will be more incentive for china to sneak more honey in.
Old post I know, but honey should be priced fairly. We raise good products and work hard to do so we deserve a fair price for our goods. How ever I do not feel good overcharging Grandma just cause I can. 
Supply and demand will control prices, if you only have a few hives supply will be low but people will want that honey so demand will be high. 
The work to harvest honey from a few hives is a lot of work most will be done by hand. Don't be afraid to charge people high prices when you have a lot of work into it. Your time is valuable so when you sell honey calculate some of that into it.


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