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Round Rock is known for unique attractions and sweets like world famous donuts, America’s Largest Indoor Waterpark, and the best honey in Texas: Round Rock Honey. You may have spotted this liquid gold on the shelves of your favorite Texas grocery store and farmers markets. Take a peek behind the hive and learn more about this 100% family owned and local company when you visit this spot that rocks!
It All Started in a Growing Garden
The vision for Round Rock Honey started in a place where you are most likely to spot a sweet honey bee, a garden. Before Konrad Bouffard was the CEO, and most importantly the head beekeeper of Round Rock Honey, he was a teacher at Stony Point High School in Round Rock with a hobby for organic gardening. He bought his first home by the high school and behind the house is where Round Rock Honey got started.
Konrad’s home had a huge garden in the backyard and he was looking for nature’s natural helper to help his garden grow even larger, bees! “Whenever you have bees, it multiplies the output of a garden. So I brought some bees in with the help of another local beekeeper, Mary Bost. She helped us get started.”
After placing beehives in his backyard, Bouffard and his wife decided to start selling the honey that the bees were producing. “The honey from those hives was extremely popular, and that’s how the company started,” Konrad shares.
A Goal to Make Great Honey Got Sweeter and Sweeter
Just like the output of Konrad’s garden, Round Rock Honey has continued to grow and has been in business now for over 20 years.
Round Rock Honey set out with one simple goal: to make great honey, and they have succeeded that goal with flying, or buzzing, colors. Part of the reason that Round Rock Honey has found so much success is because of their high standards when it comes to creating a delicious and authentic product.
“We own the hives, we own the equipment, we own everything. There is no other third party involved and we control all the quality stops along the way. If someone gets our honey, they can know that everything from the label, to the bottle, to the cap, to the honey inside, to the pollen report, everything has been paid attention to. More so than any other company.”
Eating Round Rock Honey is so much sweeter of an experience when you know that the company truly has a heart and intention for creating the most authentic and delicious product at every step of the process.
Learn From the Label
Do you ever see a label and you think you are buying local only to find out that the product is packaged and imported from somewhere else? Rest assured that Round Rock honey is actually from Texas. Just take a look at the label to clearly see what you can expect from Round Rock Honey: Fresh. Raw. Local.
Let’s break down the label (fun fact: Konrad designed the label) to get a better understanding of what “Fresh. Raw. Local.” really means:
- Fresh: Round Rock Honey harvests and bottles as frequently as they can throughout the year. They don’t produce their honey all from one season, they spread it out across the year so they have a fresh product that corresponds with the seasons.
- Raw: The honey is never filtered and is never heated above the normal outside ambient temperature of a Texas summer day. Konrad explains that the reason you should never heat or filter honey is because, “honey starts off as a whole food. If you heat it, that’s a type of adulteration, you are killing something that’s alive. You are diminishing some of the mineral content, you’re diminishing some of the bioactivity / biodynamic nature of honey when you heat it or when you filter it. Also when you filter it you are taking out pollen. The key parts of honey are the sugars and the pollens. The pollens are the proteins, sugars are the carbs, you put the two together it makes a perfect food. If you change that in any way, then it’s no longer a perfect food.”
- Local: The majority of their hives are within Central Texas and the rest are within Texas. This is a rarity Konrad explains, “Whenever you are buying honey, a lot of times in the grocery store you will see brands that will use “Texas” on their label. The assumption is that it is made in Texas or that it’s authentic Texas honey.” Sometimes, this is not always true and the product is actually shipped in from elsewhere. “The better and more honest way to communicate what your product is with customers is to use precise terms. We use “Fresh. Raw. Local.”
As you are observing the bottle, you may also notice the slogan “Honey From The Rock.” After mulling around a few different slogan ideas, Konrad went down to THE Round Rock on Brushy Creek near Chisholm Trail Crossing Park to continue brainstorming. It was when he was looking at the rock that the slogan came to him, “Honey From The Rock.”
Why Eat Honey
From impressive health benefits to its sweet taste, honey is considered to be one of the world’s best superfoods. Konrad shares that consuming honey everyday can be a beneficial additive to your daily routine.
In Konrad’s opinion and personal experience, “the healthy benefits of honey are numerous. You are putting higher quality fuel into your body so that your body can operate in a more sustainable way across the day in terms of energy to the cells and to the muscles and everything else. When I eat honey compared to other times in my life where I have eaten processed sugar, I feel better, and I know that my blood pressure is lower and my body works better.”
Honey is said to help with sore throats, gut health, contains powerful antioxidants, and is even antibacterial.
Next time you are sweetening your tea or looking to boost your health, consider enjoying a dollop of Round Rock Honey!
From the Hives to the Bottle
The process of harvesting the honey from the hives to filling a Round Rock Honey bottle is fascinating. With Konrad’s background in education, continuing to educate the public on the process of creating Round Rock Honey in a transparent way is important to him. “We want to encourage other people to keep bees themselves, to make their own honey, and to learn about how to do all of that through Round Rock Honey.” Konrad gave us a breakdown on how the honey goes from the hive to the bottle!:
Process of growing honey in the field:
- “We take down the hives in January and then start to build them back up for the year. By the time March gets here, the hives are really building up and then when we get to May we start to get some honey on them.”
- “We harvest in June, July, sometimes even into August. Then we take a little bit of a break and then we harvest a second round in October, November, and through the first week of December. Then we restart the entire process again.”
Once they have honey from the field:
- “They will go out and remove the honey, cut open the frames, spin it out and it goes into a field barrel. Then we collect those field barrels into a tank in our facility here. We blend them all together, then we put it in bottles. The public can come in and see this process through our honey house tours. Then the honey goes straight out into the public.”
See Round Rock Honey for Yourself on a Round Rock Honey Tour
Speaking of tours, buzz on over to Round Rock Honey to embark on a tour with your family. During the tour you will learn about bees and how Round Rock Honey is created. You will even watch as they bottle the honey, and sometimes there are even harvest experiences. “The reason for our honey tours is that we believe in transparency of our processes. We want people to come in and see us through the glass bottling the bottle they are going to take home. We believe that is part of our overall mission and our overall culture of honesty and authenticity” Konrad shares.
After your tour, shop around for some bee-tastic items like pollen, shirts, soaps & skincare, and of course, honey.
Looking to start a hive of your own? Round Rock Honey offers beekeeping classes as well! “We had about 3 quarters of a million people go through the beekeeping class. Among them have been some well known people who have made a worldwide impact in terms of beekeeping. That was our goal the whole time, to raise more beekeepers.”
Set yourself up for success when you shop at Round Rock Honey. They sell pickle juice to help you stay hydrated while working outside, and new and used beekeeping supplies.
Round Rock is one of the best places to get your hands on truly fresh, raw, and local honey so make sure to stop by during your visit to Round Rock! Be a busy bee as you explore additional Round Rock spots that rock like: The Kenney Fort Pub, Palermo Pasta House, Liberty Barbecue, and Gourmet Texas Pasta.
*all photos courtesy of Round Rock Honey