Born back in 2017, The Scottish Bee Company began life as a heartfelt yet hands-on response to Scotland’s rapidly dwindling bee population. At the nub was a noble vision of rural regeneration, a passionate plan to provide more hives to ambitious artisanal farmers, who would in turn prioritise saving bees, seeding more wildflower spaces and ladling ever greater volumes of nutritionally well-rounded, high-end honey provided by Scotland’s unrivalled countryside.
By championing minimally-processed, nutrient-rich honey and purposeful local produce from the idyllic Scottish countryside, Suzie and her husband Iain were not simply backing a proud, homegrown project, they were putting down a meaningful marker for Scotland’s rural economy, a globally respected community steeped in provenance, authenticity and sustainability. Above all this was a slow food appreciative business determined committed to make both a positive and significant impact on the Scottish countryside.
DID YOU KNOW: Scottish heather honey is awash with beneficial manganese (10x what you might unearth in your typical, run-of-the-mill honey), which incidentally puts it on the same superfood pedestal as New Zealand’s much lauded Manuka honey!
Suzie’s had actually started out as a chiropractor, a trusted hands-on role which quickly left her feeling isolated and lonely. Although on 1st inspection a move into artisanal food might sound a little left field, in reality, Suzie was an ardent foodie. Also looking a little closer it becomes clear that the ties between being a chiropractor and pursuing a career promoting healthier living produce is less muddied than one might imagine, since these are exactly the sorts of ‘at-one-with-nature’ remedies that most conscientious chiropractors would actively encourage their patients to embrace anyway.
Suzie had always harboured entrepreneurial aspirations. This coupled with an unbridled appreciation for the great outdoors and her native country paved the perfect pathway for the launch of The Scottish Bee Company. More importantly Suzie was sure that her fresh ‘outsider’ perspective might well prove to be the secret ingredient!
The business started out providing both hives and bees to new and blossoming beekeepers throughout Scotland. From the outset there was an uncompromising, environmentally responsible and sustainable slant to everything the Scottish Bee Company sought to achieve, from fully recyclable packaging and minimally processed ingredients, through to ensuring fair wages, flexible working hours and the rolling out of eminently sensible, sustainable farming practices (the sourcing of ethical honey, ingredients, beeswax and scents).
At the same time Suzie & Iain insisted on establishing a game-changing RePollinate charity, a highly energized hands-on project, which to this day prioritises proactive pollination initiatives via far-reaching education and ambitious wildflower seeding projects.
Just a year down the line and the Scottish Bee Company range was mushrooming nicely, from an array of fruit-infused apple vinegars through to Kimchi and Scotch Bonnet hot honeys, some enthralling honey-based dressings and of course some generously proportioned tins of Scottish Heather honeycomb PLUS scented beeswax candles. This Autumn the business unveiled a deliciously decadent honey-infused chocolate spread.
It certainly wasn’t all plain-sailing! For one thing this buoyant business, like so many others at the same time was temporarily wrongfooted by the unrelenting scourges of COVID and Brexit, which led to a temporary lull in sales, which meant The Scottish Bee team quickly found itself burdened by an unduly large and expensive warehouse that they had little hope of extricating themselves from in the shortto medium-term.
Eventually the storm passed and The Scottish Bee Company moved purposefully forward, bedding down a strong gifting arm whilst also launching The Buzz, a straight-talking podcast tasked with sharing helpful range-themed recipes whilst also providing a fitting stage for other like-minded artisanal brands to share their stories.
October 24 saw the next stage of The Scottish’s Bee Company’s ambitious evolution take shape with the acquisition of foraging-friendly adult soft drinks offering, Nuisance Drinks coupled with the launch of a new, over-arching umbrella company (Natural Larder Collective), which in time will be tasked not simply with housing The Scottish Bee Co range and Nuisance Drinks, but a wealth of other like-minded artisanal offerings.
“I didn’t want the Scottish prefix within our core brand to ever be a limiting factor which curtailed our business’s bold UK and overseas aspirations,’ concludes Suzie. ‘Instead, we decided to establish an over-arching business that honed in on our clean deck/real ingredient vision. With Nuisance Drinks instantly providing us with the scope and capacity to contest another aisle (health-conscious, adult soft drinks), we quickly spied further opportunities for a new all-encompassing business that could not only house our two incumbent brands, but also act as a lightning rod for other compelling ‘real ingredient’ brands to join our expanding ‘slow food’ cause.”
At a time when supermarkets are revisiting and upgrading their incubator brand offerings and the speciality food sector grows exponentially on account of growing numbers of consumers paying ever greater attention to what they consume, The Natural Larder Collective is perfectly placed to take a meaningful stand for responsibly sourced small batch offerings packed with great taste and real ingredients; a well-deserved respite from the usual procession of dreary mass-produced, conveyor belt compositions.
