Our Story in a Flash
Being the third most cheated food product in the world, honey was disappearing from kitchens all over the world. Processed, pumped with sugar, heated, blended and homogenized, industrial honey overtook the shelves. According to Nature’s scientific report, one of every two jars of honey purchased in Asia is cheated. One in every three jars in Europe is cheated. Artisanal honey is no exception. According to the same source, cheating goes up to 50% in food markets in Europe, with a significant lack of quality assurance among artisans.
This is what motivated us to buy our first hives back in 2013. Our goal was and still is to re-establish trust and bring back honey into people’s lives.
The Honey Trail
Discovering nature through beekeeping was an eye-opener for us. We wanted to share it with our customers. We started moving our beehives from region to another with different altitudes around the seasons. It is a specific trail to provide our bees with foraging grounds and natural resources all year. This allows us to bring unique, natural new tastes to our customers. The untouched essence of nature in a jar.
More than 20 types of honey from the best locations in Lebanon can be found at our boutique in Tabaris, Ashrafieh. Our pride in our products comes from the fact that no one can argue against their origins, their quality, and their health benefits. Our honey is guaranteed 100% raw. It is untouched from hive to jar, not heated, filtered, or transformed in any way. Our honey is single-origin. It is not blended. Each apiary’s harvest is filled in its own jars and labeled as per the region. Our raw honey is guaranteed free from antibiotics, pesticide residue, and/or any added sugars.
The honey trail is also the source of most of our accessories and packaging. It was an occasion for us to meet artisans from different trades and obtain from them exclusive items. All accessories sold at our shops are artisanal. To name a few, the terracotta from Bkerzai, the honey dippers integrating the ornate firebird of Jezzine or the mosaic wood of Tripoli.
Partnership With Beekeepers
The demand for our products quickly grew. We had to ask ourselves how to scale our production and keep the same artisanal passionate production method. We thought of expanding our beekeeping network to include artisanal beekeepers through a quality assurance program. By doing so, we increased our supply instead of our production and helped communities prosper. We now work with a network of more than 30 beekeepers who follow our quality standards. We also empower communities by providing beekeeping trainings in partnership with NGOs.
A Mother’s Kitchen
During the first few years, the backbone of our adventure was the founder’s mother. Her kitchen hosted honey fillings and delicacy preparations made by her own hands. Today, although we have moved to a more advanced workshop, we keep the same homey culture that emanated from her kitchen. She still makes the delicacies and manages the kitchen with the support of her own mother. As you’ve guessed, our mouthwatering delicacies are homemade with a mother’s love. Don’t be shy to indulge yourself with our raw honey nougat, honey mead, and honey jams!
Values And Raison d’être
Today, we realize that our real objective is to preserve and nurture life in everything we do, as life is the source of beauty and health.
Thriving for Health: We aim to provide our clients with products abundant with health benefits, energy, and natural nutrients.
Memories, Not Things: We believe in being rich with experiences rather than objects. We aim to nurture the family and the precious connections it presents. We believe it is our responsibility to do so. That is why we host beekeeping trainings, workshops, and organize hive donations.
Advocating for Biodiversity and Preservation of Life: Beekeeping is a sustainable profession that preserves the environment. It is one of the bedrocks of sustainable and resilient food production.
Beekeeping provides a support system for nature and the local economy. It led us to work in collaboration with nature preservation organizations. We took reforestation initiatives with Lebanon Reforestation Initiative or LRI under our wing where we contributed to reforest areas in Rashaya, Lebanon. We have additionally succeeded in reducing single-use nylon use by 95% compared to when we started. All our packages are now reusable and environmentally friendly.
Challenges And Opportunities
Operating in Lebanon has always been a challenge, as it is a continuous struggle to make it with no support to local production and small businesses, a hostile environment for innovation, entrepreneurship, and sustainability. 2019 and 2020 have been challenging for us, but we did seize opportunities. Lebanese production has become competitive locally and internationally. Despite all the hardships, we launched our online platform this year and partially shifted our focus to international markets. We also doubled our exports through resellers in gourmet markets in Japan, the USA, Australia, and many other countries.
We also launched an initiative called “The Moving Hive” which consists of hosting your own hives with our full care and support to produce your own honey. It provides you with an engaging experience and reintroduces raw honey to everyday lives. It revives the spirit of nature with pollinating honeybees.
Our Future Objectives
Our short term goal and the one we are putting our efforts into is to expand the reach and the interest in Lebanese honey internationally.
Our long term goal is to export our know-how to new locations and markets. We want to provide our customers with local honey around the globe, wherever they may be.
