Premium ContentMouse over Home then click on Premium Content for information.Products: Honey (sold under several private-label and store brands, including Sue Bee)
Available: In all 50 states and several foreign countries
Production level: Association handles 35 million pounds of raw honey each year
Employees: 77
Ownership: Cooperative with more than 350 members
History: Founded in 1921 by five Sioux City-area beekeepers. Honey was marketed under the “Sioux Bee” brand until 1964, when it was changed to “Sue Bee”
Video: Take a tour of the Sioux Honey Association
SIOUX CITY, Iowa — Bill Huser steps in front of a wall of honey and pauses for a moment.
He scans the floor-to-ceiling shelves, packed full with hundreds of jars in every shade of amber and golden brown. After he makes his selection, he sets the jar on a counter, twists open the lid and grabs a sampling stick from a box. He swirls it around before putting a few drops on his tongue.
It's smooth and has a slight citrus taste — it's made by bees that were collecting the nectar of orange blossoms — but Huser can tell you much more about this jar of honey. He knows what part of the country the honey came from, how the texture and the color compare with the other varieties, how it's likely that it was produced by a third- or fourth-generation beekeeper.
After nearly 40 years at the Sioux Honey Association — the place that makes Sue Bee, along with several other familiar honey brands — Huser, the association's vice president of research and development, knows his honey. At the headquarters of the world's largest honey cooperative, it's hard not to become at least a bit of an expert on the sticky stuff.
The cooperative that was founded 90 years ago by five Sioux City-area beekeepers with 3,000 pounds of honey now has more than 300 producers and processes about 35 million pounds of raw honey each year. Most of it — about 20 million pounds — goes through Sioux City, while the rest is processed and packaged at plants in Anaheim, Calif., and Elizabethtown, N.C.
It ends up in bottles on grocery store shelves and in all kinds of other products, from breakfast cereal to pet food to cosmetics. David Allibone, the association's president and CEO, said he recently spent a trip to the supermarket trying to count the number of items that involved honey. It was a nearly impossible task.
Still, even in Sioux City, many people don't know how much of the country's honey comes from their hometown.
"They think we keep bees in here," Allibone said. "They don't know how big Sioux Honey is."
Years ago, most of the co-op members were small beekeeping operations, often a hobby of a person or family who made a living doing something else. These days, there are still some small producers in the association's membership, but more and more have become commercial operations. At this point, 20 percent of the members produce about 80 percent of the honey.
The hottest spots for producing honey have changed, too.
Members are located across the country, but most of the honey processed in Sioux City comes from beekeepers in the Midwest and Rocky Mountain states. Decades ago, Iowa and Nebraska were ideal for honey production, with plenty of open fields of clover and other flowers. But as clover was replaced with corn and soybeans, the available spots for bees to gather nectar dwindled.
Today, the Northern plains states far outnumber the Midlands in terms of association membership; Together, Iowa and Nebraska are home to 22 members, while the Dakotas have a combined 56 members. Minnesota has 51.
Declining production in other states, coupled with steady demand from U.S. consumers, has created a need for imported honey. Sioux Honey gets some of its raw product from several foreign countries, including India, Brazil and Canada. But nearly all of that honey is used in commercial products. The association says the honey in the jars on store shelves is a home-grown product.
The two exceptions: organic honey from Brazil (U.S. honey is not certified organic because of the free range of the bees) and a five-pound container of honey available at Sam's Club. That product has become so popular that the association is using Canadian honey to keep up with the demand.
Honey makes its way to the plant in all kinds of containers, from tanker trucks to five-gallon buckets. The bulk of it, however, is stored in 55-gallon drums stacked high inside the association's two massive warehouses, each about the size of a football field.
Samples from the new batches go to the association's high-tech laboratory, where scientists check for pesticides and other contaminants and map out the sugar profile of the honey. Some of the honey also goes to the grading lab — the room where Huser sampled that orange blossom variety.
There, the association's official "honey blender" tastes the batches and assesses their color and texture. He then files them on shelves that hold three years' worth of samples — which, incidentally, could all be safely consumed. With age, the color and flavor of honey may change slightly, but it never goes bad. (The granules that form in the bottle can be dissolved by submerging the container in hot water.)
The testing process also helps Sioux Honey ensure that it doesn't have any honey that's been diluted. The industry has faced problems with some imported honey, particularly from China, where quality standards differ from those in the U.S. In some cases, Chinese producers have attempted to move their products through India.
Back in the plant, the honey goes through a three- or four-day process from storage container to kitchen-ready. Workers driving small forklifts zip around, picking up the drums of honey and dumping their contents into large melting tanks, where the honey is heated to about 140 degrees Fahrenheit and left to warm overnight.
The process helps remove the sugar-like granules from the honey — and makes a warm, sweet scent waft through the otherwise industrial space.
Honey blender Jim LeMoine — a second-generation Sioux Honey employee who once made a model of the plant for an elementary school project — said it's the kind of smell you get accustomed to, at least most of the time.
"On Mondays and after holidays, you notice it," he said.
Once the honey has been blended, it runs through pipes to settling tanks. The stuff that can disrupt the clarity and quality of the honey, like beeswax, bee parts and debris from the hive, are skimmed off the top, along with a white foam that forms when honey mixes with air. Then it goes through a series of filters, including paper.
There are some types of honey that get a slightly different process; "Cream" or "Spun" honey is left more granulated, so it can be spread like butter. Another Sioux Honey blend, called "Aunt Sue," retains its pollen, giving it a different texture.
But for the most part, people want something very specific.
"Most American honey consumers do expect a crystal-clear product," Huser said.
When the product is crystal clear, it's ready to be bottled. A machine on an automated assembly line fills eight bottles at a time before pushing them along to get safety seals, caps and labels — Sue Bee or one of the other private label or store brands, which include Hy-Vee and Kroger, the parent company of Baker's.
It's a good product for stores. Even during the recession, sales didn't drop at all, Allibone said.
"We've actually had to turn down business in the last 12 months," he said.
Contact the writer: 402-444-1543, erin.golden@owh.com
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