Jake Reisdorf, president of the Carmel Honey Company, calls his product “the best honey in the world.” He can be forgiven for being so confident. He’s just 15 years old and started the company as a 5th grade homework project (he got an A)!
Actually, the class project wasn’t about honey, it was to build a website. When Jake started looking into a topic for a website, he discovered bees, honey, the vital role bees play in our food chain, and the alarming die-off of bees that is plaguing the United States and other countries.
The Carmel Honey Company has grown to have more than 100 hives and produces some 80 pounds of honey each year. The company sells honey products online as well as to local chefs and at local retailers in the Monterey area.
Jake and his company won last year’s $10,000 grand prize in the CSU Monterey Bay Startup Challenge and he was named Outstanding Young Entrepreneur Small Business by the Score Foundation, an honor that won him a trip to Washington D.C.
Jake is also a tireless promoter of the importance of bees to the world, and the health benefits of honey. He speaks at schools and service groups and encourages everyone he meets to buy fresh honey and to keep bees if they can.
According to the Michigan State University Department of Agbioresearch, “bees are responsible for one out of every three bites of food we eat.” That’s because most of the crops for food (vegetables, nuts, fruit), as well as important agricultural products like hay and alfalfa, require pollination by the insect world. Bees are by far the most widely known and managed agricultural pollinators, the best known being honeybees.
But bee populations are at risk, according to researchers. “Bee communities, both wild and managed, have been declining over the last half century as pesticide use in agricultural and urban areas increased,” the Michigan State website says. “Changes in land use have resulted in a patchy distribution of food and nesting resources.”
Jake has big plans for himself and for the Carmel Honey Company. “I plan to expand my public outreach and education efforts on the importance of honeybees, inspire communities to provide for honeybees by placing a hive on their property, and empower future generations to make positive decisions when it concerns honey bee health and habitat,” he says on the company’s website,
Meanwhile, we’re proud to offer honey from the Carmel Honey Company. The Meadow Farm Honey is “very unusual and has a naturally slight marshmallow taste,” the company says. It is a “single source” honey can only be made under specific conditions. Jake likes it paired with vanilla bean ice cream.
Other products include Orange Blossom Honey, cultivated only from bees visiting orange blossom flowers, Sage Honey and Wildflower Honey. Also available is 100 percent edible honeycomb (honey in its purest form, according to Jake and company), gift packs and honey sticks–small tubes of honey that can replace candy in kids’ lunch boxes.