How Savannah Bee Company built a sustainable brand by putting bees and purpose first

What started with a borrowed beehive on a forested piece of family property 46 years ago has grown into one of the country’s most recognized honey brands. 

Ted Dennard, Founder and CEO of Savannah Bee Company, joins us on the latest episode of Business Trends Today to share the story behind his journey from backyard beekeeper to national retailer, and explains why he believes the health of the planet and the health of a business are more connected than most entrepreneurs realize.

Dennard, who studied philosophy and religion before serving in the Peace Corps, never set out to build a company. He gave honey away for years before selling his first jar in 1999. By 2002, word-of-mouth demand had grown enough that he formally incorporated and began pursuing wholesale accounts and trade shows in earnest. Three years later, in what he acknowledges was almost comically bad timing, he opened his first brick-and-mortar store in October 2008, the height of the financial crisis.

The business model 

Today, Savannah Bee Company operates 16 retail locations across the country, from Florida to Arizona, along with a robust e-commerce presence and a wholesale operation that distributes roughly 150 product SKUs nationwide. The company sources its honeys globally. This includes from Tupelo trees along the rivers of the Florida-Georgia border, orange blossoms in Florida and northern Mexico, sage from California, and wild lavender from the mountains of Spain and Portugal, before bottling everything at its facility in Savannah.

Dennard describes his approach to growth through what he calls the beehive business model, a framework in which every participant in the supply chain benefits. When beekeepers place hives in an ecosystem, the resulting pollination strengthens the surrounding environment. The larger Savannah Bee Company grows, he argues, the more beekeepers it supports, the more ecosystems benefit, and the more resilient the natural world becomes for everyone.

Putting beehives in classrooms 

Through the company’s nonprofit arm, Savannah Bee Company has placed observation beehives in nearly 3,000 schools across all 50 states, several Canadian provinces, Haiti, Puerto Rico, and Guam. Dennard sees education as central to the company’s long-term mission, arguing that once people understand how bees work, they are naturally inclined to protect them.

The mission-driven culture has also proven to be a competitive advantage in hiring. Dennard said the company consistently attracts strong retail candidates who are drawn to the work’s sense of purpose, contributing to unusually low employee turnover for an industry where frontline retention is a persistent challenge.

Despite repeated interest from private equity, Dennard has kept the company entirely self-funded. He acknowledges being tempted on multiple occasions but said that looking back, he has never regretted saying “no.” Additonally, he notes that the business has grown considerably in value since those early conversations, and that no outside opportunity has matched the meaning he finds in the work itself.

"There's like 10 reasons to quit a business every single day, it seems like… And that passion and that feeling like you're doing something that's beneficial and you're playing it better than you found it, is what drives you and gives you that staying power." – Ted Denanrd

Like most entrepreneurs, Dennard’s path has not been without hardship. He described stretches of calling vendors to ask for patience on payments and navigating years where financial pressure was a near-constant presence. His outlook on those cycles, however, is characteristically philosophical; he likens the rhythm of business not to a linear climb but to a circle, with highs and lows that both eventually pass.

Follow your bliss 

For entrepreneurs looking to build something with staying power, Dennard offered two pieces of advice. 

The first, borrowed from philosopher Joseph Campbell, is to follow your bliss, to pursue the work that feels so natural it hardly seems like work at all. 

The second is simpler: persevere. He notes that Savannah Bee Company was virtually unknown two decades ago, and that 20 years of consistent effort, while it sounds daunting, passes quickly when the work is meaningful.

Ultimately, Dennard’s goal for the next ten years is clear, it’s to elevate Savannah Bee Company to a true household name. He aims for the brand to be recognized not just for its quality honey but also for its core values and the positive impact it makes globally.