About Just Bee
Our journey began long before wellness became a buzzword, as we believe wellness should be easy, gentle and taste as good as it makes you feel. Instead of chasing the latest fads, we’ve stayed true to nature’s most reliable and delicious ingredients that have quietly supported wellbeing for generations.
My grandad kept bees in Northern Ireland and my dad kept them in Lancashire. As a kid, I got stung so often that I feared them for years. So building a wellness brand around honey is a little ironic.
I came round eventually - developing a real interest in health and wellbeing, and a proper respect for what honey and botanicals can do. What began as a personal project turned into something
I shared with my friend, Andy, and before long we were selling on market stalls around Manchester.
We've been blending in small batches here in the UK ever since, infusing acacia honey with botanicals and vitamins to support things like joints, immunity, sleep, energy and gut health. We now sell over a million pots a year, and core to our success is how good our wellness blends taste.
And because bees are the quiet geniuses behind all of it, we’re committed to giving free bee-friendly flower seeds in every order. We've helped plant over 180 million wildflowers that way. A small thing, but it adds up.
Be Happy, Be Healthy, Just Bee.
Wellness brands give you mantras; we give you seeds
We want our honey to taste great and do great things. So every pot we make supports the bees, the people and the landscapes that keep everything running.
Since the 1930s, the UK has lost 97% of its wildflower meadows. That matters, because we rely on bees to pollinate 1 in every 3 mouthfuls of food we eat.
So we’re doing our bit. Since 2015, we’ve helped plant over 180 million wildflowers, and every order includes bee-friendly wildflower seeds so you can grow a little patch of your own. Our ambition: to help sow half a billion seeds by 2030!
Because bees aren’t just part of our story - they’re the tiny workers keeping the whole environment ticking.
The story so far
It all started back in 2015...
We launched Just Bee back in 2015 with two simple goals: to create great tasting and healthy products using honey; and an ongoing mission to help Save the Bees.
Three generations of honey!
Left to right: Osbourne (Joe's Grandad), Ron (Joe's Dad), Joe (Just Bee Founder)
2015...
We spent over six months of evenings and weekends developing different concepts for Just Bee, from our initial weird and wonderful ideas, to a fully realised brand before launching our very first product; Just Bee flavoured water.
Our flavoured water Just Bee drinks used a drop of honey as a natural sweetener instead of artificial sweeteners or refined sugars.
Knocking on doors of local delis, cafes, as well as artisan markets locally around the Manchester area we started selling our drinks door to door and doing deliveries from the boot of Joe's car!
We grew the brand slowly but steadily during our first year and in August 2015 we succeeded in getting our Just Bee drinks stocked in Fortnum & Mason, a very prestigious London based department store that were excited to sell the UK’s first honey infused spring water drinks brand. Our pitch to Fortnum & Mason was simply "you have beehives on your store roof, so you should sell our honey drinks" and to our amazement, they said yes!
2017...
The first two years saw steady growth in our new business and in 2017 we appeared on TV's Dragon's Den, to look for further help and investment to grow the Just Bee brand. You can watch the episode here.
That was a fantastic experience and most of the Dragons really loved our drinks, brand and ethics. We were offered the full amount of financial investment we were looking for by dragon Peter Jones, but ultimately we wouldn't give up such a large percentage of the business, so we said “thanks, but no thanks!” and walked away.
We are often asked if we regret turning him down and in all honesty we don't. The whole Just Bee ethos has always been about much more than money, we had faith in our business and we saw it as his loss, not ours.
2018-19...
Although we didn’t end up working with any of the Dragons, appearing on the show gave us national publicity and it created new opportunities and interest from many supermarkets and large high street shops. Suddenly all the supermarket buyers weren't too busy to talk to us and were interested to hear about our drinks.
Over the next two years we saw some exciting growth for our Just Bee drinks, with them being sold in Selfridges’ food courts across the country as well as Waitrose, Sainsbury's, Co-op, WH Smith and even Boots as part of their popular meal deal!
2020...
For many businesses 2020 was a very difficult year. The national lockdown during spring because of the Covid-19 virus meant that our drinks business almost completely collapsed overnight. Our drinks were typically the type of products that people buy while 'on the go' or out and about. Not great when everybody in the country was being told to stay at home! Our sales dropped by 80% literally overnight.
Demand continued to dry up as people worked from home and commuted less, orders from some of our biggest partners were reduced to zero as their own business struggled. During the Summer of 2020 (usually our busiest time of year) sales continued to be only a tiny fraction of what we had been selling the year before.
Unfortunately the Just Bee drinks business became unsustainable in this climate and we had to take the difficult decision to stop selling the drinks that had been such a big part of the Just Bee story for the first 5 years.
Launching our honey product
But, as Billy Ocean once sang, 'When the going gets tough, the tough get going' and we weren't about to let the Just Bee brand that we had put so much hard work into finish there.
Since we first started Just Bee, people were always asking us “do you sell the honey as well as the drinks?” We'd thought about it often and we had started developing our Immunity Honey in 2019. Now it seemed the right time to turn a big set back into an opportunity!
We used the time during lockdown to launch our range of raw honey and the reaction and sales were immediately positive. Starting exclusively with online direct sales meant that we weren't relying on orders from big retailers and other businesses and people wouldn't have to leave their homes to purchase their honey.
Demand for our Immunity Honey grew throughout 2020 as people sought out products that would naturally boost their immune system and provide a healthier way to sweeten their diets. During 2020 online sales of honey became the main focus for Just Bee.
We added our certified New Zealand Manuka Immunity Honey to the range and heading into winter and the dreaded cold and flu season, we added our delicious Lemon & Ginger Immunity Honey, which is perfect for stirring into hot water for a natural cold and sore throat fighting drink.
Fast forward to 2022 and we have continued our innovation in honey, launching a number of other functional and flavoured products. We have moved into our own facility in Trafford Park, Manchester, where all of our operations are under one roof. Whilst Just Bee is still only sold in the UK, we have ambitions to take our products and brand further afield in the future.
2026... same honey, new look
After 11 years of making wellness honey, we felt it was time for the Just Bee brand to better reflect the products we make and what they’re all about.
So in 2026, we’re giving ourselves a fresh new look. You’ll see it across our website, our packaging and everything else that makes Just Bee, well, Just Bee.
But while the branding is changing, what we stand for isn’t. We still believe wellness should feel simple, enjoyable and delicious - and that honey is a pretty good place to start.
It’s not a new Just Bee. It’s the same Just Bee, with a fresh new look.
Still have more questions? Contact us!
Email us at: buzz@justbeehoney.co.uk
Or write to us at:
Just Bee Honey
The Hives,
24/25 Mosley Road,
Manchester,
M17 1HQ
United Kingdom
