'(!l\}t |li>ij-|&e^p^rs' J^^m^ttr* 



A MONTHLY JOURNAL 



DEVOTED TO THE INTERESTS OF HONEY PRODUCERS 



^l.nn A ffar 



E. B. TYRRELL, Editorand Publisher 

 Office OF Pu BLicATioN - - - 230 Woodlan d Aven ue 



VOL. XXIV. 



DETROIT, MICHIGAN, NOVEMBER 1, 1911. 



No. 11. 



Shall I Sell My Honey Through Grocers, or Dired 

 to the Consumer? 



E. B. TYRRELL. 



'^^^ HIS morning, as I was getting 

 l^_7 together my copy for the No- 

 vember number, I found a letter 

 in my mail, from a subscriber, reading 

 as follows : "I'm considering either of 

 two propositions for the winter-bottling 

 for the grocery trade in established ter- 

 ritory, or, selling from house to house 

 in the cities. Would like to see some 

 of your experiences on pages of the 

 Review." 



While the advice might not be good 

 in all cases, yet I should, without hes- 

 itation, advise my subscriber to adopt 

 the house to house system, or "direct 

 to the consumer" campaign. 



Why? 



The present price of extracted honey 

 makes bottling for the trade at a profit 

 almost impossible. This is true even 

 on a large scale. Two large bottlers 

 of honey in Detroit, firms who used 

 honey by the car load, advise me that 

 they have found it so, and have closed 

 that branch of their work. If big con- 



cerns can not bottle at a profit, to sell 

 to grocers, when they have all the sell- 

 ing machinery already in motion, how 

 can the individual bee-keeper expect to 

 do it? 



Grocers as a rule are poor honey 

 salesmen. It is generally a case of the 

 blind leading the blind. Neither the 

 grocer nor the consumer knows any- 

 thing about honey. How can you ex- 

 pect them to sell it? Anything larger 

 than a pound package with them 

 "sticks." 



Again, after you work up a nice trade 

 among grocers, you are never sure that 

 you have it. A competitor can often 

 "wipe you oiif the map" by reducing the 

 price with an inferior article. Not so 

 with the consumer. A reduction in 

 price is quite apt to raise the suspicion 

 with him that the goods offered are not 

 genuine. I should not be surprised if 

 the offering of extracted honey in the 

 past at a low price has been one of 

 the principal causes of the suspicion 



