Savannah Bee Company

An interview with Mark Haney, President and CFO of Savannah Bee Company & Ted Dennard, Owner and Founder 

Ted Dennard was 11 when he was first introduced to bees and has been on a mission to share his passion for beekeeping ever since. He experimented with honey and beeswax to make quality skin care products and lip balms, ultimately founding Savannah Bee Company in 2002. What started as a passionate local venture quickly became a booming retail success, growing aggressively from just four locations in 2015 to double digits by 2020, and 16 stores currently.  

To fund this massive expansion, Ted and Mark worked with a large national bank. However, serious problems emerged when the brand’s operational needs became more complex. Savannah Bee has to manage unique, time-sensitive assets like Ted’s beloved Tupelo honey, which only blooms for 21 days a year in the Georgia and Florida swamps and requires instant cash to secure top harvests. Instead of supporting this delicate balance, the national bank verbally committed to funding new store buildouts through individual facilities, then later declined the risk. This forced Savannah Bee to drain its operating funds and use a line of credit—intended strictly for inventory and refinancing their Wilmington Island building—to pay for retail expansion, putting the company "behind the eight ball." 

Looking for a true financial partner, they turned to Ameris Bank. The relationship began around late 2018 through mutual connections, starting with a casual lunch meeting where they began building trust over time rather than switching banks immediately. Ameris stepped in by analyzing Savannah Bee's top-tier financial reporting and restructuring their debt. They carved off a fully drawn line of credit into term facilities with appropriate amortization, freeing up a true revolving borrowing-base line of credit dedicated to buying honey and inventory. This flexible structure replaced the old bank's rigid requirement to pay the line down to zero annually, which was completely misaligned with a business holding significant honey inventory that never spoils. Now, Savannah Bee has the immediate capital to pay suppliers quickly, negotiate better prices and confidently fund massive high-volume inventory plays like their holiday whipped honey and honeycomb programs for Costco. 

“What Ameris says is pretty much gold — which is critically important,” says Mark, “I feel like they trust us to run our business, and our banker is very knowledgeable and transparent with us.”  

Honey is a volatile industry, and if a company has to wait three months for a real answer from a bank, the opportunity is already gone. Ameris aligned its financing with Savannah Bee's EBITDA-driven growth strategy, providing quick decisions when real estate opportunities arose. A major "Ameris showed up" moment was financing their expansion from the original 38,000-square-foot facility on Wilmington Island into a 70,000-square-foot downtown building near the port’s ocean terminal. Ultimately, Ameris structured the financing so they could keep both facilities, growing to a combined 110,000 square feet of superior real estate assets. 

Being a local company themselves, partnering with a local bank gave Ted and Mark a sense of community and shared understanding. “The banking team here in Savannah is fantastic; they keep us coming back. Our banker is always available and he’s invested in the success of our business,” says Mark. “They’ve been there for us in huge ways as a small business.”  

While modern digital banks can work for personal accounts, a growing business needs physical branches and human relationships. The Savannah Bee team frequently visits the downtown Savannah branch to obtain large amounts of cash to pay traditional honey suppliers, secure change for retail stores, and coordinate twice-weekly deposits. These essential in-person interactions are integrated seamlessly with Ameris’ digital treasury services, online wires and ACH.  

In 2021, Savannah Bee purchased a new warehouse with Ameris Bank’s help. Today, they continue to partner with Ameris for long-term construction financing, equipment, a truck, a bottling machine, a company boat and help navigating the Small Business Administration. Additionally, Savannah Bee Company employees have moved many personal accounts to Ameris, and Ameris even handled Ted's personal mortgage. “I can’t speak highly enough about our Savannah team and the bank in general. They care all the time.” The relationship has become incredibly personal; the local Ameris team regularly attends Savannah Bee’s quarterly meetings and company parties. They are so embedded in the culture that employees sometimes mistake the bankers for internal staff. 
 
From a strategic perspective, Ameris represents a $28 billion bank that successfully maintains a community bank feel, offering direct banker access and unmatched responsiveness. "Ameris is a big bank with a small bank feel," says Greg Marini, Ameris Bank’s Savannah market president.  

Looking ahead, Savannah Bee’s strategic focus is on expanding into more grocery channels with affordable, daily use honey products, already securing placement in some of the top retail chains across the country. As they work to ensure those products turn off the shelf and scale this national grocery initiative, Ameris is positioned as a continuing partner in that growth. "We don't take it for granted," Mark says of the partnership. "There are 28 banks in Savannah, and they truly choose to bank with us."