Honey market value chain

A well-differentiated honey market value chain is equally important for producers, the distributors as well as for the consumers to provide uniform quality and further to increase the income.

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Ethiopia: Gemechis (2016) wrote about the domestic honey market value chain of Ethiopia: Crude honey is sold to collectors (nearest town/village markets) by small scale beekeepers. They pass on a great amount of the product to whole sellers in bigger cities and to local tej breweries (honey). The whole sellers act as distributors and sell the honey to retailers, tej houses, processors and consumers. Some beekeepers form marketing and producing cooperatives. They collect crude honey from members and sell the semi-processed product to processing companies or distributors. In 2013 there were nine registered honey processor companies in the country and some of them are also engaged in honey production. In Ethiopia, there is a lack of “good beekeeping practice”, thus, the cooperatives do not underlie quality controlling bodies, nor have business concepts and therefore suffer from quality loss and cannot compete with bigger companies (lack of proper collection, storage and transportation facilities; see biggest problems in beekeeping). In addition, the domestic honey market has several problems: the smuggle and adulteration of honey bee products, complaints of consumers about increasing prices of honey products, while the beekeepers have the feeling that the business is not rewarding. For local beekeepers, it is not common to separate table honey from beeswax and other ingredients, but during the tej-brewing process, beeswax is separated as a byproduct that is passed on to beeswax collectors and exporters. Hence, they serve as important stakeholders in the beeswax business. About 10 percent of the produced honey in the country is not sold but consumed in the households. There are regions in Ethiopia, where not only 10%, but most of the honey is consumed by the beekeeping households. In a consequence, in those regions there are only fragments of, or no honey market chain at all.

Source: (based on) Hans Posthumus Consultancy, 2008

In general we distinguish four types of stakeholders:

1) Chain actors Chain actors are the prime stakeholders who, at some point in the chain, own the product that is being created. They commonly buy a semi-finished product from chain actors upstream, add a certain value to it, and sell the enhanced product to buyers downstream. In the research farmers, producer firms, cooperatives, processing firms, collectors, traders, exporters etc. are included.

2) Chain supporters Chain supporters are those that are outside the chain. They supply goods or services to the chain actors, often they are distinguished as either financial providers (e.g. banks providing loans) or non-financial service providers (e.g. accountants or transporters). In the research consultants, BDS providers, quality and standard institutes, microfinance, banks, funds (IMF), and agricultural research centers (not only temporary, but years of input, extension services, seed inputs etc.) are included.

3) Chain influencers Chain influencers are those that influence the performance of the sub sector, its actors and their supporters. They influence the entire sub sector (and beyond) without performing an actor or supporters role: influencers (such as the ministry of commerce) determine (partly) the factors (such as investment climate). In the research business representative associations, Ministries, Chamber of Commerce, media, government implementing agencies (e.g. Cooperative Bureau, BoFED etc.) are included.

4) Chain facilitators A temporary (catalyst) role by an organisation (often a donor funded project) to “grease” the chain machinery, either between the actors at the various levels or between the actors and their supporters, with objective to improve the performance of the entire chain and its actors (also commercially). Often NGOs with donor funding that finance a diversity of capacity building activities. In the research SNV BOAM, NGOs, University, and multilateral agencies (UN, WB) are included.

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  Honey and beeswax products value chain map with indicated intervention areas Graph was retrieved from Drost and Wijk (2011)

Indonesia: According to a local scientist (Universitas Padjadjaran), fragments of a honey market chain exist, but work need to be done, to strengthen the value market chain. The honey market value chain is basically in the hands of the small scale beekeepers. So far, beekeepers (producers) sell their products online in the form of bulk packaging by creating and marketing their own brand, or they offer it to collectors (i.e. distributors). In a next step, the collected products (honey, pollen, royal jelly, wax) will be further processed to adjust the quality of goods (flavor, water content, ...). Table honey is sold in bigger cities situated around the particular farms. Beekeepers also sell their honey to customers, who ordered it, by their own. The customers are mostly from the middle-and upper class and besides the honey's religious importance to the Islam, the upper class'es motives to buy honey are accompanied by believing in the healthy aspects of honey bee products. Most customers do not buy honey in the supermarket or at local markets, the there offered products are mostly of poor quality (adulteration, etc..). So far, there are no widely known and understood certifications that guarantee the quality of the bee products Some beekeepers hire agencies who promote and sell their honey. The agencies charge a fee on the actual honey price. Thus, the beekeepers do not, but the customers have to pay for the agencies' services. There is no information on the beekeeper, product processing, nor the product's origin on the labels.

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  Example for a market value chain, rated as the one with the largest market potential in Lampung, Indonesia. Figure was retreived from Masterpole et al. (2019)