re: Honey as a luxury item

It's always been an interesting hypothesis but there have never been any numbers to prove or disprove the question, especially at the retail level (that is, direct honey sales at the farmers market or roadside stand).  Any such economic analysis would have to look at sales over time adjusting for historical price differences and for differences in availability of supply (which is to say, weather).

In general, food products are relatively insensitive to overall market conditions.  Consumers generally react to moderate economic downturns by eating out less but offset that by eating more "comfort foods" to combat the increased stress of the downturn.  (Obviously, these rules of thumb break down in a major depression or famine.)  Since most honey used in baking and other cycle-insensitive food products, I would expect honey demand to the wholesale market to be relatively insensitive to the market cycle as well.


Mike Rossander
       
---------------------------------
Never miss a thing.   Make Yahoo your homepage.

******************************************************
* Full guidelines for BEE-L posting are at:          *
* http://www.honeybeeworld.com/bee-l/guidelines.htm  *
******************************************************