B.C. Certified Honey Producer Agreement

What the Certified Producer Program means to the Consumer.

The Certified Producer program enables the consumer to easily identify high quality honey, exclusively produced by local beekeepers through special labeling which identifies 100% product of BC. Many honeys on the store shelf state, “Canada No. 1”, this is only a honey classification grade and does not represent country of origin. When you purchase from a Certified Producer you are buying BC honey from your local BC beekeepers.

The labels are transferable with the producer’s honey, to another Certified Producer. There are two prime reasons for transferability of labels with honey:

1. Enables a producer to have available nectar sources from out of their beekeeping area.
2. Provides a source of BC honey on poor crop years

The security labels are traceable to the Certified Producer and come in unique number lots of 1,000.

The BCHPA reserves the following rights with registered Producers:

1. To sample producers’ honey at will.
2. To refuse a producer entry into the program.
3. To revoke a producer’s right to use the Certified Producer label and to recall unused labels

Additionally a Producer must certify that they:

1. Are a member of the British Columbia Honey Producers Association in good standing.
2. Will apply Certified Producer labels only to products produced in British Columbia.
3. Will use only industry standard, attractive packaging.
4. Will submit a sample of honey for laboratory testing, if requested by the BCHPA.
5. Use only CFIA & BC Minister of Agriculture approved treatment methods for honeybees and their related diseases and pests.
6. Carry a minimum of 2 million in liability insurance.
7. Comply with the BC Bee Act, including the registration of bee yards.

Producers must re-register for the program every two years. Random honey testing will be conducted annually for a percentage of the registered beekeepers.

The Certified Producer program is designed to assist BCHPA members sell their products by providing special labeling that customers will come to recognize as representing high quality honey, exclusively produced by local beekeepers. These labels are transferable with your honey, to another Certified Producer. Labels are forfeited back to the BCHPA upon failure to renew annual membership to the BCHPA and failure to renew certified producer agreement every two years.

General Guidelines

1. New member to the BCHPA: For the first year a new member to the BCHPA is restricted to a maximum order of 2,000 labels.
2. Maximum order: for the first year of the program a maximum label order will be set at 5,000. Future maximum order may be set by number of colonies registered to the producer X area yield X 500 grams.
3. The Certified Producers and their corresponding label lot numbers will be listed on the BCHPA website and also posted annually in the BeesCene.

Costs

Lots consist of groups of 1,000.
2,000 and less: $0.05
3,000 and greater: $0.04

Producer will also incur all shipping costs.

Click here to download the Certified Producer Agreement form, which can then be viewed and printed using Adobe Acrobat Reader software.

For MAC users, please control-click on the link, choose "Download Link to Disk" or "Save Link As..." to save the application form to your computer. Open the file on your computer. Acrobat Reader will automically open the file.

If you do not have Adobe Acrobat viewer, you may click here to download and install this viewer free of charge.