Honey in glass brick containers used as a long-term store of value
Darko SavicApr 07, 2022
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Store certified organic honey in thick-walled glass containers that look like golden bricks.
Why?
Stable long-term store of value because: a) people always need food, b) properly stored honey never spoils.
Honey will be useful in any future world scenario.
Cash is inflationary over time, honey isn't.
Increase people's interest in beekeeping, which subsequently increases fruit/produce yield from all the additional pollination.
How it works
Thick/strong glass bottles are made to mimic the size/shape of golden bricks. They are filled with certified organic honey. The manufacturer's name and certificate are heat-branded into the glass brick prior to filling.
The honey is filled into glass bricks and the opening is welded shut by melting. Nothing gets in or out of the honey brick for decades.
Empty glass bricks could look something like this (left: professionally made, right: DIY bricks):
When the glass bricks are full of honey, they would look like this:
Decades later, the honey can be traded or eaten. In addition to growing food prices, the value of honey bricks would increase based on artistic, sentimental, collectible, and historic value.
"Honey banks" to connect investors with bee researchers, environmental protectors, and honey producers
jnikolaMay 02, 2022
How would it work?
Honey bank buys honey from the producers, test it for quality, and certifies it into categories according to standardized quality measures. High-quality honey gets sealed and stored, while the lower quality gets resold for consumption. People can buy honey "shares" and own a certain amount of honey that is kept in the company's containers. They can take it out and use it if needed, or keep it in storage as a long-term investment. Certified honey can always be sold back to the honey bank.
Why?
Long-term storage of value
Long-term storage of food
New investment model
Standardizing the honey production and quality
Financial support to local honey producers by investing in honey
Financial support to bee research and environment protection by investing in honey
The key feature differing high from low-quality honey is in molecules that help keep the honey good for long-term storage. High-quality honey can be kept for thousand of years, while the one with low quality can be stored for only a few years before losing its consistence and key properties. Low-quality honey gets used for human consumption or drug-production. Of course, the other standard honey characteristics are taken into account.
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General comments
Spook Louw3 years ago
White rice can also be stored indefinitely, and will always retain its value as a staple food. It would be worth less per kg than honey though, and also not look as nice (you can store white rice in the traditional method). Liquor could be an option, I wonder what else would work? Soy sauce and vinegar also do not spoil if stored in an airtight container.
I can't think of anything that would have the golden colour of honey.
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Goran Radanovic3 years ago
It could work. Something that could make the bottle more valuable is if a famous person ate a spoon of honey and then signed the bottle, perhaps with a message.
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Shubhankar Kulkarni3 years ago
Definitely an idea worth putting out there. Is there a specific reason for using honey? Why not liquor or cheese? A few drawbacks are:
It will be heavier. And the world is moving in the opposite direction. Transactions have become lighter and with electronic currencies and transactions, using honey bricks might seem primitive with little to no technology extant to store, protect, and move it in large quantities safely. It will be as heavier as carrying gold bricks of the same volume but having a very low price (in the range of 10^-4), adding to the costs of storing and moving it unnecessarily.
Difficult to test its purity to avoid fraud. Money can be traced and bills can be scanned for authenticity. In the case of honey, every bottle will have to be opened.
Opening sealed glass bottles is a task. The consumption of even a small piece of glass in the honey may be harmful to a person.
The price of cheese or liquor increases with age, which is not the case with honey. If honey prices remain stable during inflation, it does not make sense to store it.
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Spook Louw3 years ago
Shubhankar Kulkarni Cheese can not be stored that long, especially if it is not frozen. I agree that there could be more options than only honey, but I do not think cheese is one.
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jnikola2 years ago
Shubhankar Kulkarni I agree with the first point. For the second, spectrophotometric or similar methods could be used to test honey quality without opening the glass containers.