The 'clean eating' health craze is propelling honey consumption to unprecedented levels, yet one CEO cautions that supply is failing to keep pace with demand. This surge is driven by a shift away from artificial sweeteners and high-fructose corn syrup, alongside growing interest in value-added honey products such as hot honey. Mike's Hot Honey has capitalized on this trend, using it as a condiment on pizzas and cheese plates nationwide.
Domestic Production at Record Low
However, domestic honey production has reached an all-time low, continuing a steady decline since the late 1980s. The parasitic Varroa destructor mite has devastated hives, leading to a 14% drop in production from 2024 to 116 million pounds in 2025, the lowest since records began in 1939, according to the USDA honey report released on May 20.
Monocrop Farming and Bee Losses
Mike's Hot Honey CEO Matt Beaton attributes part of the issue to US monocrop farming practices. 'It's corn, it's alfalfa, it's soy, and that means there's not the floral diversity that bees really thrive on,' he told Yahoo Finance. This has contributed to staggering honey bee colony losses, with 1.6 million colonies lost and commercial beekeepers sustaining an average loss of 62% between June 2024 and March 2025. A major factor is mite infestations that have developed resistance to the industry's most widely used pesticide.
For surviving colonies, it is often more lucrative for beekeepers to deploy bees for crop pollination rather than honey production. Smaller beekeepers struggle to make ends meet, with profits averaging less than $2 per pound for unprocessed honey. USDA data shows honey and other non-pollination businesses accounted for less than 20% of bee producers' incomes last year.
Import Reliance and Tariffs
For Beaton's company, scarcity poses less risk due to a diverse sourcing pool, particularly from Argentina and Brazil. 'The biggest thing that we do is maintain optionality,' Beaton said. 'So if there is a tariff that's levied or there is a geopolitical situation, we have different options that we can pull on.' With the widening gap, major honey brands are increasingly turning to countries like India, Argentina, Brazil, and Vietnam. Sweet Harvest Foods, the country's largest beekeeper since December, still relies on imports to meet demand. However, this shift challenges the domestic industry, leading to efforts to curb imports. In 2022, the American Honey Producers Association and Sioux Honey Association successfully petitioned the US Department of Commerce to impose tariffs on major foreign honey sources.
