PLAN Bee is Scotland’s leading beekeeping company, providing beehive management services to companies across the UK. The firm also sells cold extracted and unpasteurized honey as well as honeygar dressing.
Name: Alison Bell
Position: Managing director
WHAT’S YOUR BUSINESS CALLED?
Plan Bee Ltd
WHERE IS IT BASED?
North Lanarkshire
WHY DID YOU SET UP THE BUSINESS?
THE business was founded in the summer of 2011 when a lot of beekeepers emerged offering beehive-related services in light of much media attention on the declining population of Britain’s bees. The business had existed for a number of years when I joined as an office manager in late 2016, a little over a year later the previous management had unexpectedly walked away from the business. Although I had management experience in my previous career in retail and communications, I had never run a business before so you could say I fell in at the deep end.
HOW DOES IT WORK?
BEES and pollinators are fundamentally important to all living things, from the air we breathe, to the food we eat, so our USP is rather unique.
I started the year with no staff, one contracted part-timer, one beekeeper and a number of upset clients and suppliers who had undelivered contracts and in most cases hadn’t enjoyed dealing with the company in the past. The first step was customer re-engagement and delivering on all outstanding orders. Perhaps the biggest setback I inherited was the company’s financial affairs, I enrolled in an evening accounting course in college and took on the task of cleaning up the books. A new strategic direction was implemented, orders were fulfilled and within just a few months the business was repaying some of its dues. By the start of the beekeeping season we had contracted beekeepers to look after the 20 or so beehive management contracts. In late summer I employed a business development manager to implement our new strategy and we have been in overdrive ever since.
HOW IS IT DIFFERENT FROM COMPETING BUSINESSES?
ALTHOUGH the business was started in a midst of a lot of beekeepers and businesses offering beehive-related services, particularly in London, we now don’t really compete with other businesses. We pick and choose where we can partner to add most value to a client, and where our partnerships can have true long-term value – centred on community and schools engagement. We have developed a strategic plan that is focused on a product package that we are uniquely positioned to deliver.
WHAT IS YOUR TARGET MARKET?
WE are lucky to be in a position where we can consider and choose our customers. We are now, first and foremost, an environmental education and awareness organisation, we use bees to deliver a message around sustainability – so it is important that any incoming partner business is attuned to implementing impactful sustainability initiatives.
Secondly, we aim to deliver our environmental awareness workshops and “Meet the Bees” sessions to young people in schools in communities where we take on new business, so we only accept partnerships that are quite community focused.
WHAT DO YOU ENJOY MOST ABOUT RUNNING THE BUSINESS?
I AM quite proud of the turnaround success story of Plan Bee, and often have to pinch myself how far we’ve come in just one year. Day to day, I enjoy leading a genuinely successful business that is growing rapidly – we will have close to 30 contracted beekeepers looking after beehives by spring next year.
WHERE DO YOU HOPE THE BUSINESS WILL BE IN 10 YEARS’ TIME?
THE beekeeping side of our business is now sustainable for the first time in the company’s history. Our schools education programme has been the driving force in the turnaround success of Plan Bee. We provide environmental solutions for almost 100 UK companies and nearly all of them sponsor a local school within their community. We would love to be in position to provide our “Bees and Biodiversity” lessons to schools across the UK.
Finding another 100 or so corporate partners would help us deliver this ambition.
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