The 90-second video on the Savannah Bee Company website features its founder and president, Ted Dennard, talking about his new honey.
“We created the Winter White with Passion Fruit with the Original Triscuit in mind,” he says. He then makes a Triscuit hors d’oeurve.
He spreads the honey on a Triscuit, adds a peach slice and a couple of almonds and declares the result “a perfect, ready-to-go snack.”
Savannah Bee Company honey has been sold for years by large retailers with a national customer base such as Crate & Barrel, Dean & DeLuca and Williams-Sonoma. But this pairing with Triscuit marks the first national marketing campaign to promote the Wilmington Island firm.
The Savannah Bee Company and four other food artisans are featured in the Makers of More campaign by Triscuit’s manufacturer, Mondelez International, a global snack food maker. All five food producers created toppings to be eaten especially with Triscuit.
And as part of the campaign, the five have agreed to sell their gourmet concoctions online only — along with a box of Triscuits for every order — until June 30.
The other food products are McClure’s Olive Tapenade, The Jam Stand’s Cherry Ginger Jam, Wondermade Marshmallow’s Blackberry Mallow and Olympia Provisions’ Summer Sausage.
A customer gets two 3-ounce
jars of the honey plus a 9-ounce box of Original Triscuits for every $13 order of Winter White Honey with Passion Fruit from the www.savannahbee.com website or the company’s Facebook page.
“We love being paired with a classic Triscuit,” Dennard said. “We have re-discovered how much we like Triscuit.”
Kristin Newitter, Mondelez senior brand manager for Triscuit, said his firm looked across the country for different food makers with simple roots.
“Savannah Bee Company aligns really well with Triscuit,” Newitter said.
Dennard was approached in February by the Edelman advertising agency approached Dennard in February about creating specially made honey for Triscuit.
In March, the staff of Savannah Bee, about 20 people in all, began taste-testing a variety of honeys, including lemon and blueberry. The passion fruit honey won because of the unusual blend.
“The tartness of passion fruit with the sweetness of honey,” Dennard said. “We took the Winter White Honey that we’ve sold for many years and spun in pure passion fruit.
“You know you’ve got to be creative with food. There’s a little bit of art as well as science.”
In the first test with passion fruit, “we pushed the limit to the most strong,” he said. “Then we used the least. And we got it down until we found the perfect tartness of the passion fruit.”
By late April, the company had made and bottled the first batch.
The new honey is not only good on a Triscuit, Dennard said.
“Most people will just say, ‘yummy’ and use it for breakfast,” he said. “I think it’s fantastic with any bread like English muffins or a bagel with cream cheese. It goes well with cheese. And it goes well with mojitos, (a cocktail made with mint, lime and rum)”.
Plus, said Kate Dowdle, Savannah Bee marketing and media manager, “We were drinking margaritas and Ted was lining the edge of the glass with passion fruit honey.”
After the Makers of More campaign ends June 30, Savannah Bee Company will still sell the new honey but under a different name, Dennard said.
“It will be Whipped Honey with Passion Fruit,” he said. “There was a little confusion by the general public with ‘winter white.’ The public wanted the honey to be white. And they didn’t know why we would be carrying it in summer.”
ABOUT SAVANNAH BEE
Ted Dennard established the Savannah Bee Company in 2002. Today, his honey and body care products are sold in thousands of stores around the nation. They’re also sold in Canada, the Middle East, China, the United Kingdom and Spain. There are three Savannah Bee retail stores, two in Savannah and one in Charleston.