Feature Stories

 

It’s almost impossible to truly estimate how many different products you could find at any given flee market, swap meet, or crafts fair.  Items ranging from hand-sewn wallets to antique cars and coins entice buyers at a variety of venues across the state. 

 

Edible items, however, often are the merchandise most appealing to a broad spectrum of visitors.   Yet the food at these markets, no matter how delicious the samples may be, doesn’t sell itself.  The salesmen or saleswomen at each of these booths are who bring the pleasure associated with their products, and the woman selling Randol Honey is no exception. 

 

Pat Randol would seem like any other average Iowa woman when first meeting her, but spend a few minutes talking to her at her Randol Honey Farms display at your local farmer’s market, and you’ll have a great time getting to know a very special entrepreneur.  This business’ success has not been without personal sacrifice on behalf of Pat and her husband, Tom, but you would never know that if you stopped and enjoyed both a sample of Pat’s honey and a second or two of conversation.

 

Developing a honey business might be sweet, but it surely isn’t simple.  Pat started Randol Honey Farms seven years ago on her and her husband’s acreage west of Winterset.  As an addition to raising goats on her hobby farm, Pat collected a few hives from a local farmer who was moving out of the state.  Unfortunately, the bees in those hives died during that winter, but that didn’t stop her.

 

While accompanying her husband to a tire-business meeting in the Western part of the state, Pat “heard about a bee-keeping class in Altoona.” After she developed a strong knowledge about honeybees and honey production, she grew her business to 55 healthy hives.   To keep both her bee-keeping business and hobby farm thriving, Pat needed to continue working at her full time job in an accounting department at an insurance company, while still developing the hives she kept at various farms in her area. 

 

The struggle of a 40-hour work week and maintaining a business that required significant attention and care grew quite difficult, and Pat and Tom came to a difficult decision: get rid of her full-time job and the benefits that came with it, or get rid of the honey farm Pat was truly passionate about.  

 

Pat asked herself, “Do I quit [Randol Honey Farms] or do I expand on it?”  After examining the exhausting schedule she had lived by for five years and the new demands for her unique products, her and her husband’s faith led them to expand the honey business. She had the trust that “God would take care of her” and quit her full time job.  

 

She has made sure to create profitability with her business to help provide for her family and hobby farm, pointing out that she “wants to keep my goats, [she’s] got to feed them!”  Not only did she keep those goats, but also Randol Honey Farms has come to a point where they “are slowly but surely getting to where we can expand.” It seems that now expanding beyond their already extensive selection will be the next big challenge!

 

Randol Honey Farms offers a variety of products, including flavored honey, goat milk and honey lotion, and edible bee pollen.  What are her best sellers?  Pat says, “All of my State Fair award-winning flavored creamed honeys tend to sell the best,” including blueberry, blackberry, raspberry, orange, and jalapeño. Yes, jalapeño is perhaps the most popular item Pat sells! She recommends it for a great to glaze on meat or mixed with equal parts of honey and cream cheese for a tasty cracker dip, as she says, “it’s different, and it’s good!”

 

Pat delightfully provides other items derived from honey, a food she describes as “God-made perfect!”  

 

She recommends her honey and goat milk-based lotions and soaps, which she is providing in complimentary sample sizes at her markets this year.  She says that while their color “puts people off, they actually do heal your hands.”  The most familiar way to consume honey is by using it as a sweetener, but Pat suggests using it to benefit your health. She explained raw, strained, unpasteurized honey could contain bits of pollen “that may help relieve allergies.”  It also heals cuts on the skin, as honey itself “contains no bacteria and is doesn’t wash off easily.”  She highly recommends taking a serving of her bee pollen daily, as it’s high in protein and vitamin B, and contains several other great health benefits!  

 

Getting to talk to a lot of different people at the markets is what Pat enjoys the most about selling Randol Honey, and she’d surely love introducing new customers to her fantastic food.  Enjoy a nice conversation and a sample of that jalapeno honey at her display at the Valley Junction, Winterset, and Creston farmers markets from May through October.  

 

Pat can be reached at any other time via her website www.randolhoney.com, or call Randol Honey Farm at 515-210-7445.