About Langnese Honey
Naturally, good for you
A real success story
In full bloom for over 90 years
For almost 100 years, Langnese Honey has been synonymous with pure natural honey enjoyment like no other brand, producing only the very best of nature in consistently high quality. Find out here about everything we are doing to maintain this tradition and discover how the brand has developed over the past decades.
The company
Blossoming since 1927
Langnese Honey is Germany’s best known and most popular bee honey. We are the market leader in quality honey and, as a traditional company, can look back on a long history. It all began on an early summer’s day in 1925 when the young importer Karl Rolf Seyferth bought 5,000 kg of Californian honey on the Hamburg Stock Exchange. After initial setbacks, the honey business began to boom after just two years.
The brand – a meeting marked the start
In view of the growing demand, the time had come to find an attractive brand name and Karl Rolf Seyferth placed an advertisement as he went in search of a corporate shell. The offer made by export merchant Viktor Emil Heinrich (V.E.H.) Langnese proved to be the most interesting to him, due to the fact that the name was associated with a biscuit factory in Hamburg that enjoyed an excellent reputation at the time. It was renowned for producing the finest quality and demonstrating considerable commitment, making it the perfect choice for Seyferth’s honey.
Messrs Langnese and Seyferth subsequently met in a Hamburg restaurant. Over caviar and lobster, Mr Langnese made it clear that he only intended to place his name in good hands. Seyferth enquired about the conditions and received the following patronising answer: ‘For you, young man, 300 Reichsmarks and the bill for today’s meal.’ Even back then, this was virtually a gift! In 1927, Karl Rolf Seyferth acquired the company V.E.H. Langnese. The ‘Langnese Honey’ brand was born. In the 1930s, the iconic Langnese jar was developed with its hexagonal, honeycomb-shaped design bearing the inclined golden Langnese logo. Both the jar and logo continue to make Langnese Honey so distinctive to this day.
Our iconic hexagonal jar, which is reminiscent of a honeycomb at first glance, has been lighting up the eyes of young and old alike for decades.
The rise – expansion and innovation
Honey was soon in demand again after the war. Langnese Honey was to become a brand that promised consistently high quality, which is not easy to deliver with a natural product. Langnese therefore acquired its own apiaries in South America and put in place comprehensive quality control measures. In addition, Langnese spent months conducting taste tests in grocery stores with owners and customers until the perfect Langnese Honey formula was found. The investments paid off – by 1958 Langnese Honey was already the market leader.
The first honey specialities were launched in 1985, featuring selected varieties for discerning connoisseurs. In 1997, the Bee Easy range appeared on the market – the world’s first honey in a practical top-down squeezy bottle, making it both drip-free and easy to use.
Langnese Honeys have been bottled in Bargteheide in northern Germany since 1965. Yet Langnese’s success extends way beyond the country’s borders, with the brand now in demand in over 50 countries around the world and a firm feature on the honey shelves.
Quality
Our gold standard
Every day, people trust us to ensure that our bee honeys contain only the best of nature. We are well aware of our responsibility. That is why we perform various checks on the products that end up on your breakfast table at home.
Starting in the country of origin, the beekeepers test the honey in line with a wide range of criteria. As soon as they reach our factory in Bargteheide, each honey undergoes a careful incoming inspection. The next step involves conducting laboratory analyses using state-of-the-art technology based on the latest science. We use this quality control system to make sure that only the honeys that meet our consistently high standards reach the jar.
Langnese Honeys are purely natural products, filled in the jar just as the bees produced them. That has been our guarantee of quality for almost 100 summers.
Quality control – complete and consistent
Our Langnese Honey always features the same high quality and its typical exquisite taste. That’s because its journey to the jar follows a precise plan:
1
The apiaries carefully selected by Langnese supply natural honeys from the best honey regions in Europe as well as Central and South America. We end up with a wide range of the world’s finest honeys because they adhere to our strict specifications.
2
Once the honey consignments arrive in Bargteheide, they firstly undergo an external check to ascertain their purity.
3
The delivered goods are given a stock number that makes them unmistakable.
4
Samples are taken from each container in a honey consignment and sent to the laboratory. Our thorough analysis methods only approve the very best honey for bottling as Langnese Honey.
5
A team of honey tasters forms the delivered honeys into a filling batch whose taste and appearance is as consistent as possible from January to December, producing a Langnese Honey you can rely on.
6
The honey passes through several sieves before filling to ensure that it is pure and free of wax particles and suchlike.
7
Before each filling process, honey samples are once again taken from the stirred batch and thoroughly checked before it is approved for filling.
8
Last but not least, there is the final inspection, where we test the jars by taking random samples. In addition to taste and the ‘inner values’, we also inspect the external appearance of our honey.
Not forgetting: We keep the storage period between filling plant and retailer to a minimum so that you can always enjoy the freshest honey.
Origin
Pure nature
Our natural honeys come from the best honey regions in Europe as well as Central and South America. The many busy bees are looked after by selected beekeepers who meet our strict Langnese quality criteria. That is why we can offer a wide range of high-quality honeys. We generally do not source honey from China or other Asian countries. The Langnese Honey you have at home is a completely natural product. This is prescribed by the German Honey Ordinance and is something we strictly monitor by subjecting the honey to a three-stage inspection process before and during filling.
Our strictly monitored natural products come from carefully selected apiaries in Europe as well as Central and South America, which maintain high standards of quality and purity. Just like we do.
The place of origin – determined with pinpoint accuracy
Each honey contains flower pollen, which sticks to the bees’ bodies when collecting nectar and is thus carried back to the hive. Pollen analysis under the microscope can determine precisely the plant species and region from which the pollen in the honey originates. This may be time-consuming, requiring a great deal of expertise and a very good laboratory, but it is worth it, because we know exactly where our honey comes from.
Honey imports – high-quality and necessary
Honey needs to be imported because the honey harvest in Germany unfortunately only covers about a fifth of the actual demand. In order to be able to meet the high demand, we source our honey primarily from Europe as well as South and Central America.
