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After 10 years in business, running this London honey shop is still a "precarious game"

Kai Ryssdal visits Samantha Wallace, co-owner of a honey shop in London’s Borough Market. He’s been talking to her about business in the U.K. for more than six years.

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Samantha Wallace said managing red tape from Brexit, hiring challenges, and rising costs make running her business an uphill battle.
Samantha Wallace said managing red tape from Brexit, hiring challenges, and rising costs make running her business an uphill battle.
Andie Corban/Marketplace

More than six years ago, “Marketplace” host Kai Ryssdal visited London to explore how Brexit would impact the global economy. On that trip, he met Samantha Wallace, co-owner of From Field and Flower, a honey shop at the Borough Market. 

Since their first meeting in 2019, Ryssdal has checked in with Wallace through the COVID-19 lockdown, the aftermath of Brexit, and high inflation

During a trip to London this month for the “Marketplace” series ”The Age of Work,” Ryssdal’s first stop was From Field and Flower to catch up with Wallace.

Her business just hit its 10-year anniversary, but she said she still worries about her business’ survival — in part because honey is so dependent on temperature and rain. 

“If the balance is just not right, we either don’t get any honey at all and the bees starve, or we get an excess of honey,” she said. “How do we make it cover its costs? So, it’s a constantly precarious game, and we never quite get it right.” 

She also feels that the U.K. government policies and the macroeconomy make it difficult to run her business. 

“Where they spend money, how they invest in small businesses, red tape around things like Brexit … it’s really difficult,” she said. “We’re having to constantly manage an uphill struggle of more and more costs, paperwork, more difficult to hire people.”

Use the audio player above to hear the full story.

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