Marketing/ sales plan (4th year commercial beekeeping operation)

Closed
Ron Glave
Owner/ Beekeeper
(2)
3
Project
Academic experience or paid work
80 hours per learner
Learner
Anywhere
Advanced level

Project scope

Categories
Digital marketing Market expansion Sales strategy
Skills
business lending beekeeping strategic planning business support systems quickbooks (accounting software) business planning financial data marketing wholesaling sales
Details

Established in 2019 in Revelstoke BC, BeeKind Honey Bees operated with 80 hives until April 2021.

In April 2021, BeeKind Honey Bees purchased an existing reputable 100 colony beekeeping operation in Armstrong BC (1.5hrs from Revelstoke).

Now operating at 250+ colonies our focus is diverse between, bee stock sales (Nucleus colonies and Mated queens) in the spring, beekeeping education opportunities for youth and adults spring and summer, and raw honey production harvested in the fall.

We operate mostly through our ecommerce website www.beekindhoneybees.ca as an online retailer and through social media. We do not have a physical brick and mortar location.

We have invested in developing a basic operational business plan through an online platform called https://www.liveplan.com that is integrated with our QuickBooks Online account providing real time financial data, and have applied to Riipen's Level Up program to further develop our existing operational business plan as our other project. We're open to a shared collaboration between the two plans for the greatest consistency and optimized effort.

Now that we are in our fourth year of operation, and have defined our operational scope and business model, we plan to update our business plan to a point where it can attract small business lending, business support, grant opportunities, and potential investment. We're open to extending collaborative access to our LivePlan account to have it finalized there (ideally) or cutting and pasting a formal business plan in your preferred format into our LivePlan account.

Additionally, we are considering the purchase of an established beeswax candle company to compliment our operations and fill in the slower operational times. The business is https://beeswaxworks.ca/. They retail candles through their ecommerce website, and wholesale to roughly 50 accounts. The purchase of this business would require financing, and a suitable business plan to go represent our operations.

Our market segment is divided into three main categories, product from the beehive (honey, pollen, bulk beeswax, beeswax candles), products for the beehive (basic beekeeping supplies and equipment that we generally use ourselves), and beekeeping related services (educational opportunities for youth and adults, mentorship, pollinator habitat, ShareHive program, etc.). Our service area is mostly within 2.5 hours of Revelstoke.

We realize the potential for B2B wholesale opportunities for all of our produced products, and establishing retail store accounts in our area.

We have worked through an initial branding process, logo development, and are now finalizing our honey product labels for print with a design that will be easily applied to our range of produced products.

We also have an opportunity to expand on our current raw honey production to include creamed honey and cut comb honey in a high demand marketplace.

We are excited about the potential for this business, and have reached a point where there are too many pieces floating around not organized in a strategic plan.

Deliverables
No deliverables exist for this project.
Mentorship

We are available to mentor as much time as necessary to successfully complete this project.

About the company

Company
2 - 10 employees
Food & beverage, Agriculture

Established in 2019, BeeKind Honey Bees is Revelstoke's first full commercial Apiary. We are a small scale commercial honey bee stock and raw honey producer, beekeeping educator, and online beekeeping retailer, with operations between Revelstoke BC, (Columbia Shuswap Region) and Armstrong BC, (North Okanagan Region) Canada.

We offer quality products from the beehive (raw unpasteurized honey, bee pollen, bulk beeswax), and for the beehive (nucleus colonies, queen bees, basic beekeeping supplies and beekeeping equipment) to our customers and beekeeping community, along with a variety of beekeeping learning opportunities for all ages and levels of interest, through our Shop and Services.

We believe our passions paired with our values for kindness, generosity, teaching, and sharing, drive our business philosophy and guide our priorities. The combination of honey bees, beekeeping, and small business, is our medium to express our values into actionable, positive, lasting change.