If you haven’t read it, you should check out Vikings Weren’t Horny (and Why We Care), but the TL;DR is this: Honesty and accuracy matter, whether it’s a fact, a story, an ingredient, or a claim.
As we mentioned in the article, we try to buy local for many of our ingredients, but there are some things which we either can’t or – and this matters – choose not to get locally. There are many things that are so inefficient to grow or produce in our climate here in chilly Vermont that the ethical and practical choice is to source an item, ingredient, or product “from away,” as we’d say up here in New England
Up until now, we’ve sourced almost all of our honey from a single apiary outside Ottawa with some additional honey coming from another apiary about 200 miles away. Now in our fourth year, we’ve grown to an annual volume that’s making it difficult to coordinate and track all of the honey we use.
To date, guaranteeing honey provenance was extremely simple since the honey got on a truck at a farm and got off the same truck at the meadery. With tens of thousands of pounds of honey coming in, the equation has gotten a little more complicated.
The staff met and agreed that the best decision to make would be to move towards working exclusively with True Source Certified honey.
True Source Certified honey can often be a little more expensive than honey from blenders and apiaries who forego the certification, but knowing that our entire supply chain is being monitored to eliminate the risk of counterfeit honey means a lot to us, and – more importantly – means a lot to our customers.
If you want to learn the details about the monitoring process and the history of counterfeit honey, True Source has a very accessible website which gives an incredible overview. You should check it out here.
We’ve already switched a few of our products, and the reviews from our customers have been excellent.
So, effective immediately, we are proud to announce that all of our meads are being made with 100% True Source Certified honey!
Swing by for a pint and toast to the wonders of antiquity and again to the wonders of modern agriculture!
