One honey of an idea

Honey.
How sweet it is.
Sticky too.
But one Prince Edward Island company has transformed this sticky sweet stuff into some solid golden Honibe (hon-ee-bee) products that are sweetening the customers' teas and taste buds across North American and very soon Europe.
Since January 2008, Island Abbey Foods Ltd. has released two unique products, the Honey Drop, which is an all-natural alternative to the sugar cube, and Honey Delights, which are 100 per cent pure honey candies, all of which are made with P.E.I. honey.
And now this Charlottetown-based specialty food producer is set to launch two new products in its Honibe line: pure honey sprinkles and honey suckers.
"We're busy like bees around here. That (busy bee line) never gets old. I'll be using that one for years," laughs John Rowe, president of Island Abbey Foods Ltd.
Born into longstanding farming family with its roots firmly placed in Montague, Rowe had a natural inclination toward the business of food.
But it was a weekend camping trip in the Canadian west coast mountains with some friends years ago that tweaked this honey fan's honey of an idea.
"When we got in there, I had to open up my backpack and the jar of honey that I had on the top of it had shattered all over my tent and my clothing. . . . I thought there's got to be a better way," Rowe smiles.
When he returned to his then home in Vancouver, he started looking for dried honey products and realized although there were lots of honey-flavoured candies and lozenges, they were actually made with sugar.
"I discovered that nobody had figured out how to dehydrate (pure) honey into a solid," says Rowe.
He returned to P.E.I. and started Island Abbey Foods Ltd. in 2004.
After four years of research and development, the company launched its first product, the Honey Drop, a unique and natural alternative to the sugar cube. Available in honey or honey with lemon, the 20-calorie drops are an easy add-in for tea and coffee at home, at work or on the go.
"What we've done is remove all the water. Honey is about 20 per cent water so this is honey minus the water so that's it. We've not altered the honey at all. It smells the same. It tastes the same," Rowe says, who knew they were on to something big after only a few months.
"We'd send samples to chefs and buyers and stores and people in the media to try and once they tried it they really loved it. So within the first two months we were written up in several prominent magazines (and featured in newspapers) and on TV. The exposure that we got helped sales."
The fact that the product was unique helped fast-track it into the big chain grocery stores and small specialty shops across Canada and into the United States in record time.
"The other side of this is we benefited from a couple of trends that are occurring. More and more people are being conscious of what they're eating, what they're putting into their (bodies). And they're looking for alternatives to the refined sugars out there. Honey is the most popular natural sweetener, yet a lot of people never used honey because they didn't like the sticky mess," Rowe says.
"At the same time a lot more people started to drink tea. Tea consumption is going up and up and coffee is leveling off. And honey goes great with tea."
Island Abbey Foods was quick to take note that many people were just popping the honeycomb-shaped drop-like candy. So they come up with a round 14-calorie version now known as Honey Delights which was launched last fall.
"This year we're actually going to be launching the world's first honey sprinkles so you can actually shake it on desserts or put it into baking (or on toast)," Rowe says.
A honey sucker line is going to be released in the next few weeks as well.
"The great thing about it is you can eat it as a sucker or put it in your tea and the stir stick is on it," says Rowe.
The company now employs 20 fulltime people and another 10 part-time.
Rowe says they are also working on a medicinal line of honey cough drops that will hopefully be released last this year.
"We've come a long way in a couple of years which is very exciting."