Classic American ‘honey bear’ package debuted in 1957

One of the most iconic and lovable food product packages in the world is the plastic, squeezable honey container that bears the shape of an adorable bear.

 

Food writer Doug Mack of Minneapolis, Minn., tells us that as a boy, he remembers: “Our honey…came in a squeeze bottle that looked like a bear. It was the only novelty container that I recall using on a regular basis, but it never registered to me as unusual or even fun, because that’s just how it always was.”

“In my grade-school mind,” Mack said, “I suppose the natural order of things went like this: All honey comes from bees, and then it goes into plastic bottles that look like bears.”

That pretty much tracks the thinking of the fellow who “invented” the honey bear container in 1957, Ralph Gamber of Lancaster, Pa.

While he and his wife, Luella, were having dinner in their home with a pair of visiting beekeepers from California, they got to brainstorming “novel packaging ideas” for the honey that the Gambers’ small, home-based company was marketing.

 

“We just figured a bear likes honey, why not a bear of honey?” Ralph Gamber told the Associated Press.

It’s a sweet, sweet story that began when Ralph, a meat salesman with Armour and Company,  suffered a heart attack while he was in his 30s. His physician suggested he find a relaxing hobby to help relieve stress.

 

Ralph purchased three beehives and some beekeeping equipment at an auction for $27 in 1946, “determined to resurrect his childhood fascination with honeybees.” He figured he would sell any surplus honey that he collected and selected the business name of Dutch Gold Honey.

 

He said he wanted to honor the Dutch roots of the Gamber family as well as incorporate the “golden color and preciousness of the honey.”

Thus, Dutch Gold Honey was born in 1946 in the family kitchen. As business grew, the Gambers built the “Honey House” in 1954 on a vacant lot across the street from their home in Lancaster. Ralph Gamber insisted that his “new honey factory” look like a residence to blend into the neighborhood.

Ralph Gamber carefully did his homework in developing the “honey bear bottle.” 

He didn’t want “his bear” to resemble Winnie the Pooh, the popular storybook character of the 1950s, the legacy of author A.A. Milne.

 

Andrew Adam Newman, a senior reporter with the Morning Brew multimedia news organization based in New York City, said Dutch Gold was fearful of any possible legal action, so the “Gambers never patented the honey bear,” thereby allowing every food company under the sun to package their honey in bear containers.

 

Ralph Gamber was an astute businessman. Newman reported that the Gambers started “a second business, Gamber Container, Inc., which manufactures many types of glass and plastic containers including, of course, honey bears.” The Gamber Container tagline is: “Only a bee could design a better place to store honey.”

Seven different models of containers are offered; most have flattened-out sections in the front and back to accommodate labels. Available in various sizes, they are called “Flat Panel Bear” designs. 

Collectors, however, prefer the model that harkens back to the original design, “Round Belly Bear.”

 

Back in 1957, it was the summer job for the Gamber daughters, Marianne and Nancy, and their friends to hand-paint the noses and eyes of the bears on the bottles.

Nancy Gamber Olcott, who became Dutch Gold Honey’s president and CEO in 2002, said: “Occasionally, the honey bears were also painted with bright red lips,” much to the displeasure of her father.