The past year has seen many of our careers and lives change due to the worldwide corona virus pandemic - mine being one of them. While I have been lucky enough to carry on with my teaching and some designing there has been lots of other changes. I've been spending more and more time on the family farm and been involved a lot with my fathers Bee Keeping and Honey production. I initially helped brand their product so they could label up their jars and sell them locally in farm shops and farmers markets here is the blog post I created in 2019 illustrating that.
However, as I watched them hard at work over the summer I noticed there was so much more potential for their product and hard work. I kind of gate crashed their business and tried to experiment with new products and different ways we could present the honey.
First, for anyone who doesn't know - the business is called Olmstead Honey. Over the past year I have set them up on Instagram, facebook and we even have some really fun mini documentaries over on you tube. Bee sure to check them out! Here's the link to a little documentary I created interviewing them on how the business started and evolved...
The ethos behind the brand is to let the product do the talking. We wanted out branding to be minimal both in its presentation and packaging and let the product speak for itself. We have people traveling all over to come to the farm specifically for 'our' honey so there was no need for any fussy ad campaigns or labels. The below image very much represents us!
The fortunate thing with Olmstead Honey, unlike other hobby bee keeping businesses is that they are able to actually make a profit on their honey. This isn't by selling at extortionate prices (in fact our product is very cheap in comparison to competitors) it by being able to sustain the business themselves. Dad is a very skilled carpenter and engineer as well as a farmer. These are key skills for bee keeping too! Dad is able to make all his own hives (as I write this they currently have had 37 functioning hives this past summer season) this saves literally thousands of pounds! he can also make all the interior frames AND he has converted an old disused granary barn into a 5* hygiene rated processing studio!
Dad inspecting one of his frames in the on site honey lab
One of the supers from the bee hives that are hand made on the farm in the carpentry shop
One of the bee hives that are hand made on the farm in the carpentry shop
Corinne and my daughter Elsie pouring fresh honey into jars in the honey lab
Dad and Corinne outside their honey lab on the farm
With dads carpentry skills and love for passing a weekend in the work shop I started to think about where they could take their 'brand'. I knew that with the corona virus people were becoming more conscious of where and what they are purchasing and that the christmas shopping scenarios was going to be some what different this year.
Dad busy at work in making one of our recycled wooden gift boxes
Dad busy at work in making one of our recycled wooden gift boxes
Dad busy at work in making one of our recycled wooden gift boxes
We set about making candles from the leftover beeswax and thinking of gift box ideas we could make. Below are some of our beautiful outcomes from our joint efforts over the summer - if you are interested in these or any other products e mail me at emikiddy@googlmail.com to find out more.
All our boxes are hand branded using pyrography
All our wooden items are hand crafted using recycled or up-cycled wood
We haven't organised a licence yet but we are hoping to sell soaps and lip balms in the future too
We are so proud of what all our product is looking like
I've really enjoyed developing the Olmstead Honey brand over the summer. I often get involved with other logo and branding projects outside of fashion. I'm particularly passionate about helping small and new brands get themselves off the ground. Get in contact if I can help make your dreams become a reality!
Finally, just because its so cute, here are my kids; left and right and my nephew in the middle bee keeping this past summer!
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