Mount Henry Honey

Mount Henry Honey comes from the Blue Mountains and Bathurst regions of NSW. Our busy bees collect nectar from a range of native trees and shrubs, making every batch unique. Our 100% pure honey is extracted and bottled on our beautiful farm, Mount Henry, at the base of the Blue Mountains.

We are Mount Henry Honey – Gemma (myself), Henry, Freddie and Matilda. We live at the base of the Blue Mountains on our family property, Mount Henry, where Henry grew up. It’s a beautiful part of the world on the Cumberland Plain in Western Sydney – an important and threatened ecosystem in NSW. Henry and I returned here in 2015 after living and working around Australia and overseas. Our last homes before settling back into life on the farm were Perth, Jakarta, Longreach and Cairns. I am a journalist and producer by trade, and as well as freelancing and having my own media business, I have spent much of my career working at the ABC across regional, radio, online and television. Most recently I worked on ABC’s Catalyst and War on Waste.

Henry is an ecologist and wildlife photographer, specialising in wildlife conservation efforts. His passions are birds and reptiles, but he lights up in the presence of any fauna, and flora for that matter! Henry and his ‘Difficult Birds Research Group’ team from the Australian National University have raised over $400,000 for conservation over the past three years, and were nominated for a Eureka Prize in Environmental Research in 2018. Most of his work in this field has been dedicated to critically endangered Swift parrot and Orange-bellied parrot.

Henry’s father Nick has been an apiarist for over 30 years, and he’s now following in his footsteps, working under his expert guidance. Taught by the best, Henry uses his field ecology skills, and general all round knowledge and understanding of the environment, to inform his beekeeping.

We feel so lucky to live the life we do. And with a young family we are taking stock of all the things that matter most to us – time together, and on the farm. It is our greatest pleasure to bring you this product we are so proud of.

Where did the idea for your business come from and how has it evolved?

When we moved to the farm in 2015 I began to think maybe one day we might start a honey business. My father in law Nick produces THE most amazing honey, and has done so for decades. But I was very much in the throes of my career at the ABC and commuting three plus hours a day didn't seem too bad, given I got to come home to such an amazing place! It was only once I had my first child, Freddie, in 2017 I started to think seriously about how I could carve out a career and work life for myself that fit around my young family. 

For the first year or so of my son's life I continued working in the media, taking on contract roles. It was only in February 2019 I seriously applied myself to the nuts and bolts creation of the business, guided by the excellent Lady Startups Activation plan (recommended!). It's a six week course but there's no time limit and it took me until October to build our brand and get everything in place for launch! 

We continue to evolve, slowly, as we near our one year anniversary. Henry, who is an ecologist by trade, has continued to build his beekeeping skills, working alongside his dad - our head beekeeper, Nick. Ecology and apiary are so well aligned because understanding the natural world and all its changes and peculiarities is crucial to understanding how, when and where the honey will be flowing. We have plans to expand our product line and there are always, aaaalways things I want to do to grow the business. The key is finding the time. Luckily it can grow with us, as a young family.

Can you tell us about the challenges you have faced within your business and what has helped you to overcome them?

My main challenge is as mentioned above, time. Parenting two tiny humans keeps me on my toes. I also have to remind myself sometimes I have a six month old baby and I only really put a pause on the business for a couple of weeks after her birth, before picking everything up and running with it again.  The way I have dealt with being time-poor at this stage of my life is trying to set myself realistic expectations and not biting off more than I can chew. I have the support of my wonderful husband and partner, Henry, in every way. He's a wonderful co-parent but because his work is often away for weeks at a time there are periods where I am solo parenting, so at these times the business has to take more of a backseat than normal. Also, starting the business, and pouring capital into design, products (jars/labels etc) all takes some savings. And you do end up pumping your profits back into building the business - which is exactly what I expected.

Where do you see your business going in the future?

We have plans to expand our product line (all will be revealed!) and stockists. We are currently available online, of course, but also in store in NSW, the ACT and in a few QLD locations. Again, a lot of this comes down to having the time to approach the long list of specialty stores I would love to see our honey for sale in! BUT, an amazing aspect of our first year in business has been having had more than half of the stockists we have so far approach US about stocking the honey. 

I also have a wishlist of improvements for the back-end/online part of our business in terms of clever automation and more customer interaction, as well as building on the stories behind Mount Henry Honey. 

I hope Mount Henry Honey is something I will one day be working full time on, when I have that time. That's the goal! It makes me wish I had started it earlier - when I could have dedicated all my time to it! But it's a chicken and the egg situation as without kids, I may not have started it! And with kids, I have to be patient, and grow it slowly.

Any advice for small business owners in rural and regional Australia?

There is such an amazing interest and groundswell of support for rural and regional businesses at the moment. Tap into the online/instagram platforms celebrating rural and small businesses. #buyfromthebush #spendwiththem are just two. And there's also a huge move to support small, local businesses. It's probably never been a better time to launch a business in regional or rural Australia. And if your business, or marketing platforms (namely instagram!), can share stories of life outside the big cities you have an even richer offering to share. There's no one right way to do life but having lived in big cities, and much smaller regional centres, I feel nothing really beats the quality of life a bit removed from the hustle and bustle. If you can set yourself up with an income, driving a business you're passionate about, that works around your lifestyle, you're winning!

What a treat to hear from Gemma and the Mount Henry Honey team. You can shop their collection at or via our Wattle I Gift Hampers.