Buzzing about sweet success of Cork honey company, run by fourth generation

IF, behind every great man is a great woman, then the life of Kevin Collins has been blessed indeed. A veritable sisterhood stretches all the way back to his great grandmother, Catherine McCarthy Collins, an enthusiastic beekeeper who established what would become Molaga Honey.

“There’s a strong thread in the Collins’ family history of farming women,” says Kevin. 

I’ve been surrounded by women my whole life who have driven the business over the years, between my mother, my grandmother, my great grandmother, my sisters, and, I hope, one of my daughters will one day want to come into the business.

Molaga Honey are producers and bottlers of Irish honey, importers of EU honey, and Ireland’s only commercial producer of comb honey. The farm is located at Gurranes just outside the coastal West Cork town of Timoleague. There has been a farm here in the Collins family since the 1770s: Nine generations raising cows, pigs, sheep, tillage and even turkeys over the years – and now, honey.

In the 1860s, as a young child returning home from mass, Kevin’s great grandmother, Catherine McCarthy Collins, spotted a swarm of bees and asked her father to gather them up. So began a lifelong passion for beekeeping and honey production.

Catherine had a talent with bees, selling her Collins Family Honey locally. She passed on her talent to a son, Timothy, who passed it onto his son, Jerry, Kevin’s father.

Imbued with an entrepreneurial streak and a greater interest in engineering than farming, Jerry kept the bees while his wife was regarded as the real farmer! It was a dynamic that worked and enabled expansion of the business when Jerry saw a niche in the market for importing quality honey from the EU to complement their wild West Cork produced honey. Soon after, Collins Family Honey become Molaga Honey.

Timoleague has ancient connections with bees and honey. Coming from the Irish, Tigh Molaige, or House of Molaga, Saint Molaga is believed to have first brought bees to Ireland and established the famous Franciscan friary that rises from the shores of the village, and Molaga Honey made the most of this connection to honey folklore.

By focusing on honey, Jerry grew the business steadily, making in-roads with national retailers. Kevin was always on hand but often busy establishing a new dairying enterprise. With 240 head of cattle and 300 of their own hives, each producing around 50 pounds of liquid gold a year from 100,000 bees per hive, Jerry and Kevin turned their farm into a veritable land of milk and honey.

In addition to the honey farm in Timoleague, a network of apiarists stretch from Kinsale to Ballydehob, supplying a golden hued honey redolent of the Cork countryside.

When Jerry passed away in 2022, Kevin took over both dairy and honey farms full time and has gained a nationwide listing with Tesco Ireland for their EU sourced honey in all 166 stores. They are also listed with Musgraves who carry their West Cork and EU honey jars and squeezy bottles.

Molaga Honey is unique in that it is a single estate honey. This means every single jar is traceable to the farm from where it came. There are three honey lines: single estate EU honey sourced from farms in Bulgaria, single estate West Cork honey from their own bees and their carefully selected network of local apiaries, and a single estate natural Irish honeycomb sold in sections.

Beth O’Regan is the Business Development Manager for Molaga Honey. She joined in 2022, working closely with Kevin on their exciting expansion plans.

“We are one brand, but these are two different products,” explains Beth. “There is a significant difference in flavour. Some people love the single estate EU honey, others prefer the single estate Irish honey for its richer flavour. It hugely depends on someone’s taste buds.”

“My father saw a niche in the market for a good quality honey at a good price,” says Kevin, “that’s why we started importing and meant we could expand our business. We’re selling 15% Irish honey to 85% of the EU honey.”

Although both are remarkably close in colour – a light, golden-hued honey that suits the Irish palate - they are very different when it comes to tasting. The West Cork honey has a complex taste, deeply floral with a nutty and rich honey flavour bordering on nostalgic. The EU honey is a clean shot of straightforward sweetness with a hint of citrus. The West Cork honey is one to savour, while the EU honey would be excellent in baking, sauce-making, marinades and general cooking.

Beth confirms this is how many of their restaurant, hotel and bakery customers use the honey.

“I focus on hotels,” says Beth, “and we are extremely delighted that some of our local hotels now stock Molaga Honey. 

They use the comb honey on their breakfast bar, the EU honey in their baking and the Irish honey in ramekins for breakfast, porridge, scones, etc.

“Kevin had successfully gained major contracts with two national retailers and some local shops, so I was brought on board to grow and scale the business, which are his hopes for the long term.”

First on Beth’s to-do list was a major rebranding project with a new modern logo and website. Beth recognised the value of Molaga Honey’s storied past and the long-standing commitment to single estate sourcing for full traceability from hive to jar. It’s the kind of authenticity that’s the stuff of dreams for a marketeer like Beth, and at a time when honey fraud is an increasingly worrying problem on the international stage, being able to stand over every jar of honey and know exactly which farm it came from is vitally important for creating trust and loyalty with customers.

“A lot of people will want to buy Molaga Honey because of the story behind it,” says Beth. “It’s a fourth-generation brand, from the Collins Family Honey to being rebranded in 1993 to Molaga Honey. People buy things that have a good reputation and Molaga Honey has a great reputation, locally and nationally. People buy from brands they trust - we are that brand, renowned for its single estate honey with full traceability.”

When it comes to flavour, that can’t be compromised. 

"The attention to detail to ensure we have that premium flavour in our honey is paramount for us, because first and foremost we are about taste. Once you blend a honey it dilutes the flavour and no longer tastes of honey - it might as well be a syrup. We produce premium unblended honey. We’re not competing against a honey that’s less than €2 a jar because it’s not the same product as ours.

“We make a high-end honey in Ireland and replicate that by importing a honey that’s on par with what we can produce ourselves here.”

As a farmer of both cows and bees, Kevin’s job is as much about land management as it is about food production, and everything is done with an eye to sustainability. The farm is signed up to a scheme to bolster on-farm biodiversity with more clover in pasture and a no-grazing boundary that flourishes during summer, providing additional forage for bees.

“The bees feed on mainly clover and bramble,” says Kevin, slipping in the dynamite fact there are 365 different varieties of blackberry in Ireland – one for every day of the year!

There’s a little bit of whitethorn, sycamore, dandelion, and the effect of the salt air.

The vision for the year ahead is not shy on ambition, as Beth explains.

“This year, there’s a real focus on growing and scaling the brand. We have massive ambitions to go outside the Republic of Ireland and start exporting first to Northern Ireland then into the EU.

“The Local Enterprise Office in Cork have been an amazing resource for us with mentorship and consultancy to help us prepare, but when you have a really good product, the prospect is much more exciting!

“Brexit is a complication, but we are hoping our existing relationship with Tesco Ireland will act as a gateway to trading in Northern Ireland via Tesco GB,” says Beth.

Beth and Kevin are close to sealing a deal with a third national retailer which will push them even further toward their goal of being Ireland’s most accessible and available honey producer.

“Our ambition is for Molaga Honey to be available everywhere, so we’d be delighted if someone wanted to stock our honey,” says Beth.

Aside from Kevin and his farm manager, John Crowley, who takes care of the dairy herd, the team is made up of hard-working women, keeping up the businesses’ long-standing tradition. With Beth in Business Development, Kay Oats handles administration and Sharon Pamment works on production line and generally keeps the honey houses ship-shape.

There’s another Collins woman right beside Kevin, too. His sister Kay, who married and moved away to a farm of her own, is one of the apiarists supplying West Cork honey to Kevin, and is often found at the farm assisting with the bees because, ironically, Kevin is allergic to bee stings and has to carry an epi-pen with him constantly.

“I have to suit up very well,” he says. “My sister helps me out quite a bit when I’m stuck!”

Blessed amongst women, indeed…

Molaga Honey starts at €4.49 per 350g jar, Single Estate EU Honey to €8.99 per 350g jar, Single Estate Irish Honey. Squeeze Bottle, Comb Honey and Commercial Buckets are also available. www.molagahoney.ie