CARMEL HAMLET, NY - A company’s ethos is as important as their product. For Pass the Honey, producers of individually packaged fresh honeycomb, being able to offer nutrition in a convenient way is essential to how the company is run. To learn more about Pass the Honey’s initiatives and upcoming plans, I turned to Douglas Raggio, Founder.

“The only true way to ensure honey has its fullest nutritional benefit is to eat honeycomb. However, for the millions of years that bees have been creating honeycomb, no one has made eating it convenient,” Douglas began. “But that’s what we’ve done at Pass the Honey. We have the patents for individually portioned honeycomb globally. With the convenient format, we encourage consumer trial, open up multiple daily uses, and remove excessive labor and waste for customers and foodservice operators alike.”

First though, we do have to clarify that fresh honeycomb is not classified as honey. It’s a cut/packed commodity, while honey is labeled as a processed food. When merchandised in the produce department, Douglas said that its individually packaged fresh honeycomb is consistently in the top 6 percent of revenue by item and in the top 30 percent of daily SKU overall.

As Douglas explained to me, Pass the Honey is not a direct-to-consumer brand. The company’s overarching goal is to work alongside retail and foodservice partners so that they too might reap the benefits of offering fresh honeycomb to their customers.

“At retail and foodservice, discovery and excitement are vitally important. We have a lot of knowledge and education, as well as stewardship, that we package up for retailers and foodservice operators to convey to their customers,” he noted. “We are here to create a unique and memorable experience for our customers end consumers—from point-of-sale displays that educate, to regular recipe development and our sponsorship of the National Spelling Bee.”

The potential for promotional campaigns is ripe here, with Douglas remarking to me that this program has the potential to drive generational change in consumer education of our food systems. Being a regional sponsor for the National Spelling Bee, Pass the Honey will purchase a honeycomb for every student who enrolls. With the help of a major retail partner, this campaign could truly kick off in 2024.

Future campaigns aside, Douglas commented to me about how vital experience is when it comes to converting shopper dollars—especially when it comes to gifting them a new experience.

“It’s rare to be able to introduce a commodity to entire new generations,” Douglas said, touching on the fact that Gen Z is relatively new to fresh honeycomb as a product, “but that’s what we’ve stumbled on here. How valuable is that? For a retailer or foodservice operator to be the first touch of something so timeless and so close to nature?”

Looking to the future, Pass the Honey is identifying and making direct investments into smallholder North American beekeeping operations, as well as adding more retail and foodservice accounts. With the increase in supply at hand, the company is gearing up for exciting growth.

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Pass the Honey