Hello,

       Mark Coldiron asked about getting labels designed and printed.  For
what it's worth I'll give you the highlights of our label experience.

     One of the speakers at Apimondia 1999 advised getting a member of the
female (gender? sex? caste?)to arrange honey display tables, as females
tend to have a better aptitude and taste in such matters.  I think the same
rule applies to making honey labels.  You should also try to conform to any
government regulations in your part of the world.

     In Canada there are regulations on size of print, what words can be
used, and what size of container can be used (Ottawa has an official list
of weights honey can be packed in.  If you ask why this list is necessary
they tell you it protects consumers from getting confused.  For some reason
consumers of margarine, peanut butter, jam, etc. don't need confusion
protection.  Those products are sold in any old size).

     Hopefully there is a marketing expert around who can tell you the
importance/unimportance of using words like natural, gourmet, or
unpasteurized.  In Canada consumers figure honey is better if its
unpasteurized so everyone sticks that on their labels.  I've even seen
creamed honey marked unpasteurized.  One of my customers bought some honey
with 'gourmet' on the label, and asked me why I didn't produce any gourmet
honey ( bees make honey, gourmets write books).  And natural?  Is there any
honey that isn't?(natural honey analogue?).

     When we got our labels made we enlisted an artistic female
professional and sent her photos of our area.  She used them to develop
several label designs for us to choose from.  When we first got our label
printed I was told you could not get four colours on pressure-sensitive
stock (self-adhesive paper), so we had our labels printed on non-adhesive
stock and applied glue with a machine.  I found a used machine for $50;  a
new one cost $900 CDN at that time (1985).  We shopped around for the best
price on printing.  The company we used promptly went broke.  Fortunately
we got back all our printing plates and artwork.  I now ask our printer for
a letter stating that the printing plates belong to us.  Apparently
printing plates have to be stored in a controlled environment. We recently
had to get new printing plates made up that include a bar code (UPC).  Many
of our outlets are now selling groceries over the Internet and products
without bar codes are not included in their on-line store.  Here in the
land of the beaver UPC's are sold by an organization set up by the Federal
government.  They call themselves a non-profit government organization ( a
tautology fairly common in these parts) but to sign up they demand $850 CDN
then $588CDN/year to maintain the code.  We have now found a company that
can print four colours on pressure sensitive stock.  They also apply a UV
coating that stops the ink from rubbing off when trucking jars over rough
roads.  The colours on pressure sensitive stock appear to have a harsher,
more acid tone, but its not overwhelming.

      Marketing gurus say that consumers want more information about
products on labels; specifically they want to know the nectar source of
honey.  Turns out there is a regulation here that says you can't specify
nectar source unless you translate your entire informative blurb into
French.  Given the limited room on a label I got around this by sticking on
a picture of an alfalfa blossom.  Another surreal discussion I had with the
federal civil service concerned the wording on how to reliquify honey.  I
thought the consumer should be instructed to place a jar of granulated
honey in a container of hot water.  However the regulator said that if the
consumer ate the jar of honey slowly and had to reliquify it several times
using hot water, eventually the consumer would have a jar of amber honey in
their cupboard while the label still said white honey, and somehow this
would put the universe out of kilter.  So I bent to their will and suggest
warm water on the label. I could go on but I hope I have given you an idea
of some things to consider.  Best regards, Ted