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Abdullah Motiwala (BS ’14) grew up hating honey.
In his household, if he was not feeling well, his family would turn to herbal remedies like honey, turmeric, or ginger instead of a Tylenol, and he despised what he described as the synthetic flavor of the honey.
It wasn’t until later in his life that Motiwala realized the honey he was given as a child was—like much of the honey available at your average grocery store—what’s known as adulterated honey, or honey that’s mixed with added sugars or sweeteners like corn syrup to make it cheaper to produce. Once Motiwala tried the real stuff—raw, unfiltered, unpasteurized—he could immediately taste the difference.
That taste of the good stuff formed the foundation for what would become Heaven’s Honey, the Elmhurst-based honey business that Motiwala founded in 2015. The company operates as a co-op of beekeepers producing honey used in 250 restaurants in the Chicago area, as well as Jewel-Osco and Meijer stores. The company is also selling its honey direct to customers on its website, in addition to working with the Chicago Bears, the Chicago Fire, and a number of universities.
The underlying goal of the business from the very start, Motiwala explained, was to “build a community of beekeepers” who would be able to meet a growing demand in the culinary world for high-quality local honey and sustain their output. The company currently relies on beekeepers operating over 2,000 area hives and sells about 10,000 pounds of honey a month.
“There was this gap between the chefs who wanted the product, and the supplier who couldn’t meet demands,” Motiwala told Loyola Today. “There had to be somebody who was in the middle as a beekeeper, as someone who cares deeply about the bees and understands the culinary world to say, OK chef, we’ll work with you.”
Motiwala credits his education at Loyola with helping to give him the confidence he needed to take the leap into Heaven’s Honey. He recalled being chosen to serve as the “CEO” of a group project in a hospital administration course as an undergrad, a title he said “gave me a glance of what I could be.”
“It gave me the opportunity to think bigger,” Motiwala said. “It gave me an understanding that maybe I am a leader.”
Once Motiwala began to develop his product, he started to take it door to door to different mom-and-pop grocery stores and restaurants to try and get managers and chefs to try it out and taste the difference for themselves. One of those visits was to Alinea, the three Michelin-starred restaurant helmed by chef Grant Achatz.
“I just walked in the back and I asked around for the chef. They were just like, ‘Who are you?’” Motiwala recalled. “They listened to me and allowed me to do a little tasting for them and they said, ‘OK, cool, we’d like to order.’”
With a name like Alinea under the business’s belt, other restaurants and high-profile accounts followed soon after and Heaven’s Honey has continued to blossom ever since. Other current clients include Nobu Chicago, Prime & Provisions, Gibsons Restaurant Group, Gino & Marty’s, and The Aviary. The brand has also expanded to produce and sell its own maple syrup in addition to its variety of flavored honeys—from applewood smoked and hot habanero to lavender and lemon.
Looking ahead, Motiwala is hoping to grow the business by partnering with more beekeepers, restaurants, and other clients while also demystifying the important role that honeybees play in our ecosystem.
Research published by the National Library of Medicine in 2020 argued that bees contribute to 15 of the United Nations’ 17 Sustainable Development Goals. Bees are specifically essential for crop pollination, for use in both traditional and modern medicine, and even for forest conservation and carbon sequestration efforts.
“Bees pollinate and touch so much of our food system that we’d have a food desert without them. No almonds, no fruits, no vegetables,” Motiwala said. “The whole cycle collapses.”
Motiwala’s also working to break the stereotype that bees are dangerous. That’s why the company hosts guided beehive tours for anyone who’s curious to learn more about the insects. Motiwala said they’ve hosted over 200 people over the past year for tours—all free of charge. They’re also about to launch a beeswax candle-making class, he shared.
“Our mission is not to make X amount of dollars, it’s more about how we get more people to appreciate what the bees do,” Motiwala said, “This is the closest we can get to understanding a species that’s so important to us.”
Read more stories from the Parkinson School of Health Sciences and Public Health.
