As Jason and Hethir Rodriquez craft each batch of honey-sweetened caramels at Bee Grateful Farm, they are reminded that without honey bees, these confections would not be possible. Each caramel, rich with the essence of the farm’s local flora, is a testament to the critical work that pollinators do. We spoke with Jason about the thought process behind the farm’s all-natural ingredients that make Honey Caramels a better-for-you treat.
National Honey Board (NHB): Consumer trend No. 1 in the confectionery space: permissible indulgence!
Jason: First, we start with Colorado alfalfa and wildflower honey. We work directly with a beekeeper here in Colorado that works with other beekeepers, so they co-op their honey. We order about 7,000 pounds per time; we don't use any other sweeteners. Then we use only organic grass fed cream and butter — a high-quality product, and we're not working with factory farms to get our cream and butter. It’s a healthier option compared to some of the other ingredients you'll find in caramels.
The coffee that we use in our Espresso is fair trade; our lavender is organic — we steep lavender petals in the cream, and the honey extracts all the oils out of lavender. So, even people who normally don't like lavender flavored things love Lavender Caramels because they don’t taste like the usual extract. And we use Utah pink salt, so we're trying to keep everything as local and sustainable as possible.
NHB: Take us through the R&D process of the Honey Caramels.
Jason: When we first got started, we wanted to work with honey because we knew it was a really valuable resource around here, and there's a lot of beekeepers around our area, producing a lot of honey. Bee Grateful Farm is a two-acre, completely organic vegetable farm, and we wanted to create some new products with honey to sell at the farmers market along with our vegetables. We started with lollipops and then went to the Honey Caramels. When we started tasting these caramels, they blew our minds — they were so delicious. They started out selling our vegetables, so we knew we had a winner.
There was a lot of R&D, as far as getting the temperature right. We started with hand cutting the caramels and hand wrapping them. We still cook all the caramels in small batches — that’s how we get the absolute best flavor. We manufacture everything ourselves, which is pretty unique in the candy industry. We finally had to have a custom cutting machine made; hand cutting them was very challenging because you have to get the honey at the exact right temperature. We recently got a bagging machine in our factory so we can expedite that process. It's been a long process — I didn't have a manufacturing background; I was a chef. But I had worked in the natural foods industry for about 10 years after becoming a chef. So, I tied those two things together, then learned the manufacturing process — how to get everything stabilized to have a longer shelf life. Also, summertime shipping is our biggest Achilles heel because the caramels will melt if you're not careful. So, when we ship our candies to our customers in the heat of the summer, they come in biodegradable coolers with home compostable material.
NHB: Can you talk more about the honeys in the caramels?
Jason: As the season progresses, our honey is constantly changing colors. You can see our caramels change colors, sometimes they are darker than they usually are, especially in a drought year. There isn't as much water, so the honey becomes more concentrated and darker. We started with our Salted, Lavender and Chocolate. Salt and caramel just go together like peas and carrots. That’s definitely our best seller.
My wife is an herbalist, and lavender is her favorite. A lot of coffee shops were doing lavender-honey concoctions with their teas — we noticed a trend — so we decided to test it. Honey has such a pronounced flavor that you have to have powerful ingredients to taste them through the honey. The lavender flower did that on its own. It was a magnificent combination. We add extracts to the Chocolate and Espresso to increase the flavor. We knew that once we wanted to go from three to five SKUs that Ginger Honey Caramels were perfect. A lot of customers eat those when they’re sick because they like honey and ginger on their throat.
NHB: Tell us about your solar-powered kitchen.
Jason: We have all photovoltaic that takes care of all our energy, even in the summertime with the air conditioners. It is grid type, so we produce more than we need. As with all grid-type systems, it goes back onto the grid and then we get credits throughout the winter when there's not as much sun. We try to be as sustainable as possible by using biodegradable wrappers for all the candy and post-consumer recycled packaging for the bags. We try to offset our carbon footprint as much as possible, so solar definitely helps that.
NHB: Bee Grateful Farm is a pollinator playground!
Jason: We’ve got 284 raspberry tunnels that get completely filled with bumblebees, and it is the coolest thing. You have to look out because they're a little clumsy and they'll fly right into you. Honey bees come into the tomato tunnels. Grasshoppers are a nuisance around here, but they're desperately jumping from plant to plant and spreading pollen all over the place, so we try to keep them off our crops, because they do serve a purpose. There are other parts of the farm where we've got a lot of butterflies, moths, small flies and insects — we couldn't survive without them. There is no way we could produce the food that we produce. We have to protect our crops from the sun, so with things that are flowering that the pollinators need access to like our strawberries, zucchini, summer squash, winter squash, once they start flowering, we take the tops off. And then the pollinators come in and do their job, and as soon as the fruit comes on, we put the tops back on. So, throughout the season we're working synergistically to help each other out.
I’ve fallen in love with honey bees over the years. We put on our suits and go to our boxes — we go in the middle of the bees and they’re flying all over you, and you can feel the energy from them. They’re some of the most amazing creatures on this planet. And they're just working in harmony together with one another.
To learn more about Bee Grateful Farm and its Honey Caramels, visit https://www.beegratefulcandy.com/.