Love for authentic things is passed on through generations

Mikhail Buturlin is our client and co-founder of the brand “Manufaktura medu”. The family apiary is located in an ecologically clean place in the Nikolaev region near the Southern Bug. Mikhail told us about beekeeping products and family business development.

The apiary is located among flowering gardens and fields - it is important for bees to be able to reach plants and collect pollen in their habitat. The apiary has existed for over 15 years, it was created by my father who inherited a love of beekeeping from my grandfather. After my father's death, my mother began to take care of the apiary mother. She discovered all the processes for herself from scratch. My brother Alexei and I, try to help as much as we can. We sold honey mainly through friends and acquaintances. In addition to honey, we began to make related products, for example, honey with ginger and a mix of berries. Over time, volumes increased, with fresh product added every year. And we decided to found a small brand in memory of our father, because honey is a product that you want to share, it should help people's health. For example, I do not use sugar and always replace it with honey. And a cup of tea with honey and lemon, drunk for breakfast, charges me with cheerfulness and energy for the whole day. This way I also strengthen my immune system.

 

UNDER THE RIGHT CONDITIONS HONEY CAN BE STORED FOREVER

Manufacturing is a production using manual labor. Our production capacity is small. Now my mother is in charge of all the processes in the apiary; honey production is impossible without her participation. My brother and I shared business areas. Since my main job is in the distribution of equipment and sales, I am engaged in offline promotion - cooperation with retail chains, craft stores and coffee shops, in which our products are presented. Alexey has his own digital agency, so he is promoting the brand online. Together we have developed a logo and will create a landing page, now we are solving the issue of packaging and the start of sales.

When creating a new brand, especially if it is food, the company's reputation and product reviews are extremely important. We will focus on social networks, because this is the fastest and most effective way to make yourself known. Our first task is to form the correct image among the target audience, and the audience of honey consumers is quite wide. In the online space, she is predominantly female: mostly girls are looking for honey for their homemade desserts and mothers for children. We will employ many bloggers in our strategy and online marketing program. And these will not be purchased reviews, as is often done - “here's our product for you - advertise”. We will give our honey to influencers to sample, so that they can write about it only after tasting, making sure that the product is of high quality and tasty with the correct consistency and aroma. Not only the product is environmentally friendly, but also the very approach to brand development.

If someone is looking for big brands with big factories, they are not our clients. We want to adhere to the philosophy of family business, to emphasize that our honey is ours. 

We registered the trademark because it is important for business that everything is systematized and structured. In addition, registration is important for a brand to go offline, because only a branded product can be verified and certified. A trademark is a name to which a specific understanding of a product is attached. And of course the "Manufaktura medu" is a memory of the father that is visualized as a brand.