Defiance, Iowa — The team at Smitty Bee Honey continues to grow along with the company’s thriving industrial and retail business. The honey packer and producer has added five new faces thus far in 2013, bringing their total number of employees to 14. While the Schmitz family has been in the honey industry for several decades, they also recently celebrated their 25th Anniversary as Smitty Bee Honey, making this a landmark year for the company.

The first and most high profile hire of the year was VP Director of Sales Jim McCoy. McCoy works primarily with Smitty Bee’s corporate customers, promoting the benefits of utilizing the company’s high quality honey as an ingredient in addition to their custom blending options and private label capabilities. Having held previous senior sales positions with other key players in the honey industry, including National Sales Manager and VP of Industrial & Retail Sales, McCoy has extensive experience working with national grocery chains and mass merchandisers.

In addition to McCoy, Smitty Bee has added Administrative Assistant Jessica Meseck, whose duties include customer support and scheduling inbound/outbound deliveries. Terry Erwin, Karl Ezquerra and Mayra Luna have also joined the Smitty Bee staff to assist with bottling and loading operations.

The employee growth parallels the rise of Smitty Bee’s corporate sales, but also their retail business. Local honey lovers can purchase Smitty Bee Honey in regional retail stores or place direct orders by calling their Western Iowa headquarters. Smitty Bee is looking forward to continued expansion in the coming months, as operations will soon extend into a custom-built 20,000 square foot facility expected to increase overall production capacity by fifty percent.