Marcus enjoys a sweet business (From Gazette & Herald)

Marcus enjoys a sweet business

FARMERS across the region have struggled against the foot and mouth crisis, falling prices and foreign competitors, but Marcus Cordingley, owner of Yorkshire Honey, has thrived.

"I think we will be all right until they find mad bee's disease, but then I would probably be the one most at risk from that!" he jokes.

Marcus has run the family business for the last 23 years. Based in The Old Post Office in Scampston, Yorkshire Honey seems to provide a model of a small local food producing business.

The honey retails in more than 50 shops across the region as well as several London outlets, and there is a mail order service. Indeed, Marcus's main problem is supply.

"I suppose we are lucky really in this business," he says. "It's the opposite to most producing areas. My main problem is whether I can produce enough honey, not worrying about selling it."

Honey, it seems, is very popular. "There's a real shortage of honey at the world level," he said. "New Zealand, France - these are major producers who, because of disease and crop spraying, just cannot produce enough."

Marcus's main issue at home is the weather. Like so many of us, he looks forward to those long, sunny days, but for him it's a matter of urgency. "Bees can't produce honey in the rain, and if you've not got any honey, you can't live."

Marcus has more than 300 hives in a 15-mile radius of his 'honey house', the home and headquarters of the business where he lives with his wife and three children.

The future looks bright for the firm begun by Marcus's father almost 50 years ago, and he looks forward to passing it on to his children one day.

Today he aims to expand the business to have a retailer in every town in Yorkshire for his range of heather, borage, spring blossom, blossom heather and moorland honey varieties.

And for Marcus, "there's nothing I would rather do, it's great to be self-employed, to have the freedom."

Updated: 14:32 Wednesday, April 16, 2003