Why is honey often packaged in bear-shaped containers?
Recently, I rediscovered my love of honey and I consume it almost daily on my oatmeal and yogurt. I much prefer the taste of plain yogurt sweetened with honey to “lite” versions of yogurt and most other flavored yogurts.
Anyway, it’s been driving me crazy lately wondering where the “honey bear” package came from! Although I typically buy honey in glass jars and have been experimenting with lots of uncommon varieties (desert honey, melon, lavendar, etc.), there’s still that honey bear staring me in the face every time I visit Trader Joe’s.
So finally this morning, I got off my butt to do a bit of investigation on the Internet. And found it on like the third hit!
In short: the honey bear package was invented by the founders of Dutch Gold Honey empire in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, in 1957. The founder and his wife were at a friend’s house eating dinner and discussing the recent death of A.A. Milne, creator of the Winnie the Pooh cartoons, when they thought of the idea. Naturally, sales soared after introducing the container. A new iconic package for an old product was born.
Read more about the founding of the Dutch Gold Honey company, including this story, by downloading the following PDF:
