Kattunayakan community
Forest fringe villages, Wayanad, Kerala
Harvested by Kattunayakan honey-collectors in Wayanad using traditional smoke-free rope descent.
Every purchase supports sustainable livelihoods, preserves traditional knowledge and strengthens women-led producer groups in this village. You are not buying a product — you are joining a community.
Organic Wild Honey
by Wayanad Forest Collectives
500g of raw, unheated multifloral wild honey from the Western Ghats forest belt.
"We take the honey the forest can spare. If we took more, our grandchildren would have to buy sugar."
100% of the profit reaches the artisan. Anudaan collects 0% platform fee on marketplace orders.
Want to do more than buy?
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The story behind this piece
The Kattunayakan are literally 'kings of the forest'. Honey is not a product to them; it is a relationship maintained over centuries with the rock bee cliffs of the Ghats.
A collector descends 60 feet on a hand-twisted rope ladder at dusk, sings to the colony to calm it, and takes only the honey lobe — never the brood. The hive is left to rebuild and is visited again the following season.
Traders once bought this at ₹90 a kilo at the forest gate. Anudaan buys at a floor price four times higher and lets the collective set the retail number.
This jar tastes of jamun, coffee blossom and wild sage — a season of a forest you will probably never walk through, kept honest by the people who do.
How it's made
- 1Cliff hives are located and monitored through the flowering season.
- 2Harvest at dusk by rope descent, no smoke, brood comb left untouched.
- 3Cold-strained through cotton within 12 hours — never heated.
- 4Bottled in glass at the collective's own unit in Wayanad.
What your purchase changes
- • ₹450 returns roughly 4x the old forest-gate trader price to the collector.
- • Funds safety rope and harness replacement for the climbing team.
- • Protects wild bee colonies that pollinate the surrounding Ghats.
