Milestones Icon: Madhava Honey

Madhava Honey began as a concept at the original Rainbow Gathering in Colorado in 1972. Bart Utley, who sold honey from the back of a van in Boulder Canyon, planned to use his honey business to fund a commune. The commune didn’t last, but the honey business did.

Utley was friends with University of Colorado graduate Craig Gerbore, who had a degree in business management.

“Bart met me and said, ‘Here’s the honey and a list of accounts, and here are the keys. Good luck,'” Gerbore recalled. “I found myself alone on a five-acre farm south of Longmont with a honey business and five goats.”

Gerbore knew no more about bees and honey than he knew about the goats, but he had two hives and an alfalfa field, and Madhava Honey was born.

The company employs 46 people and has been at its current location at the junction of Colo. Highways 7 and 66 in Lyons since 1980. Locals in Lyons still bring empty jars to Madhava daily to buy the honey at a lower price.

Madhava Honey no longer has hives. It markets local honey and provides a conduit for Colorado producers. The company also use honey from neighboring states such as New Mexico, Wyoming and Nebraska.

“Colorado is not a large bee state,” Gebore said. “There are only a dozen commercial beekeepers living here, though beekeeping on a hobbyist level is very widespread.”

The United States consumes twice as much honey as it produces, and Colorado is one of the leading per capita users of honey in the nation. The honey business proved to be a practical one for the business major.

Madhava also sells Agave Nectar, a liquid sweetener made from the extract of the wild Agave plant in Mexico. Agave Nectar pours more easily than honey and has a milder taste. It also can be used as a substitute for sugar and has a low glycemic index, so it is suitable for people with diabetes.

Other goods sold at the company’s retail shop in Lyons, the Sticky Wick-It, include bee pollen, royal jelly and propolis as nutritional supplements, and beeswax for candles.

In 2010, the company added an additional manufacturing facility in Mead, after receiving venture-capital financing from Greenmont Capital Partners in Boulder. Hass Hassan, managing director of Greenmont and former co-founder, president and chief executive of Alfalfa’s Market, became the company’s lead director, and Gerbore maintains his position as director.

“Honey is the oldest food we know,” Gerbore said. “Nothing we eat is as old as honey. And the Agave Nectar may be one of the newest foods we know.” That combination of old and new is keeping Madhava Honey at the top of its game.

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