This is real wildflower power. The Honey Project is a next-generation honey brand that looks good and does good too. On a mission to inspire people to fall back in love with nature, rewild Britain and ensure the survival of bees, insects and wildlife using honey as a vehicle for change. Their promise: for every jar you buy, they rewild 100 wildflowers on your behalf.
Despite most people thinking of honey as natural, friendly and positive for the world, it is in fact the third most faked food, behind milk & olive oil. ‘Honey launderers’ cheat authenticity tests by adding cheap rice and corn syrup to the mix. This lack of transparency makes it harder to trace the honey’s provenance. Before it even hits your toast, your cereal or your smoothie, it’s often travelled halfway around the world with untraceable, unsuspecting and near-endless amounts of air miles attached to it. Not only is this bad for consumers but beekeepers are angry as well. Fake honey in the UK market drives down prices and skews the real cost of local British honey. You only have to look at the back of the labels of most supermarket honey. Often it says a mix of EU and non-EU honey. Sometimes it doesn’t say where it comes from at all.
Closer to home, in the UK, our wildflower meadows have declined by 97% (an area the size of Wales) since the 1930s, predominantly due to intensive agricultural farming practices. This has greatly affected insect and floral biodiversity in Britain. And while pollinators are responsible for a third of all the food we eat, there aren’t many honey brands doing their bit to give back to Britain’s natural environment.
That’s why Laura Eyles and Ed Little, decided to start The Honey Project – to wake people up to local British honey and get people to fall back in love with nature, through their rewilding.
“When we started digging into the honey market we were really shocked by how murky it really is. From ‘honeygate’ scandals and honey launderers to how most supermarket honey is imported from halfway around the world and blended together into plastic squeezy bottles. A far cry from the romantic view that most people have of bees & honey.”
– Ed Little
“On top of all that we have discovered, the dishonesty you see from the big brands is staggering. Claims that they are doing all that they can to protect the environment, when of course, they aren’t. Giving people transparency and honesty is what they really deserve. So although we’re starting small, when every jar plants 100 wildflowers it can add to something so much greater.”
– Laura Eyles
All their honey comes from up in Tamworth, Staffordshire – where their beekeeper Matthew has over 170 hives. The ‘Unrivalled Runny’ is a summer variety where the bees feed on surrounding wildflowers. The ‘Creamy Soft Set’ is a spring variety where the bees feed on oil seed rape. Unlike the runny honey, their creamed variety is stirred for 24-48 hours before jarring. In doing so a lovely soft buttery texture is created as the honey crystals are broken down becoming smooth and buttery. Hence the name ‘Creamy Soft Set’. They retail for £7.89 or £15.78 for the bundle.
The rewilding aspect is facilitated in collaboration with our charity partner, Buglife. 25p from each jar goes toward planting British B-lines up and down the country. It translates to 1m x 1 m2 and roughly 100 wild flowers. These B-lines act as nature’s transport network enabling native insect pollinators to move up and down the country without getting stuck or trapped. The first area of land The Honey Project will be rewilding will be in South London, hoping to have a sizable donation to offer while pulling their sleeves themselves. Time will tell but this represents a new way of doing business. Profit for purpose.
The honey starts at £7.99 and ranges from Unrivalled Runny to Creamy Soft, Joyeous Ginger and Jolly Cinnamon. Aside from the fact that the honey is ethical on several imperative levels, you can also really taste the difference, and not in a subtle way. The flavour is truly tremendous.
