Honey Bunchies did not get a Shark Tank deal. It also did something more interesting afterward: the family business grew, changed its name to Bon Bee Honey, secured major retail distribution, and eventually shut down on its own terms.
The final chapter is now clear. Honey Bunchie LLC, the company behind Bon Bee Gourmet Honey Bars, announced in April 2026 that it would end operations on April 30 after more than 16 years in business. The company followed that announcement with a farewell sale of its remaining inventory. (honeybunchies.com)
That makes the Honey Bunchies story less of a conventional Shark Tank success-or-failure story. The family never got the investment they wanted. They nevertheless built the brand substantially beyond where it stood when Kendra Bennett walked into the Tank.
Honey Bunchies asked for $200,000 and left Shark Tank without a deal
Kendra Bennett appeared on Shark Tank in Season 14, pitching Honey Bunchies with her parents' story at the center of the presentation.
Her father, Ed Payne, had been an F-4 Phantom fighter pilot during the Vietnam War. The family's account says he spent three months trying to recreate a honey-based snack his wife, Jennifer, had made decades earlier. He did not reproduce the original recipe, but the resulting bar became Honey Bunchies. The business began in 2010 and started retailing in 2013, with Whole Foods as its first major retailer. (honeybunchies.com)
By the time Bennett reached the Tank, each bar retailed for $2.99 and cost about 81 cents to produce. She told the Sharks that year-to-date sales were $300,000 and that she expected to finish the year at $519,000, with an estimated $22,000 in profit. (transcripts.foreverdreaming.org)
Her ask was $200,000 for 10% of the company, implying a $2 million valuation.
The problem was what Bennett expected to happen next.
She projected $2.2 million to $4.2 million in sales for the following year, pointing to potential distribution through 7-Eleven, three national distributors, a national retailer, growing online sales and a private-label customer. The 7-Eleven opportunity was particularly important, but Bennett acknowledged that appearing at the chain's trade show did not guarantee orders from its stores. (transcripts.foreverdreaming.org)
The Sharks were not convinced.
Mark Cuban said the energy-bar market was brutally competitive and that the projected growth would require too much work before he could see an adequate return. Barbara Corcoran questioned the assumptions behind the sales forecast. Daymond John cited the difficulty of entering a family business. Kevin O'Leary objected to the valuation.
No Shark made an offer. (transcripts.foreverdreaming.org)
The company did not disappear after Shark Tank
The obvious assumption after a no-deal episode is that the company eventually folded.
That was not what happened immediately.
Honey Bunchies continued expanding after the episode and changed its name to Bon Bee Honey in April 2023. The company said the new name was intended to give its gourmet honey bars room to grow beyond the original Honey Bunchies identity. The recipe itself remained the same. (honeybunchies.com)
The timing mattered. The Shark Tank appearance aired in April 2023, around the same period as the rebrand.
Bon Bee also pursued the retail expansion Bennett had described in the Tank. In 2023, the company announced a national Kroger deal. It had already established distribution with retailers including Whole Foods, 7-Eleven and Natural Grocers. (nosh.com)
Then came another significant retail test.
In August 2024, Nosh reported that Bon Bee Honey had entered more than 400 Sprouts Farmers Market locations as part of the chain's "New for You" innovation set. The company had previously launched with Sprouts in 2017 and said its bars had become the number-one-selling item in the nutrition-bar category there for two years before a difficult expansion and the COVID-era disruption ended that run in 2021. (nosh.com)
So the post-Shark Tank story was real growth, not merely a website remaining online.
Bon Bee Honey reached major retailers, but the biggest projections need context
Some later Shark Tank update sites report very large revenue and valuation figures for Honey Bunchies, including claims of roughly $3.5 million in annual revenue and an estimated $8 million net worth.
Those numbers should be treated as estimates, not audited company disclosures.
The company's own public materials establish the retail expansion, but they do not provide a detailed audited revenue history that would justify treating every figure repeated online as fact. The distinction matters because Bennett's original Shark Tank presentation itself contained projections rather than guaranteed orders.
At the time of the pitch, for example, the $2.2 million to $4.2 million figure was explicitly a projection. Bennett told the Sharks that several pieces of the expected growth were still opportunities rather than completed purchase orders. (transcripts.foreverdreaming.org)
What can be verified is that the brand continued to secure meaningful distribution after the show. By 2024, Bon Bee was entering hundreds of Sprouts locations, while its products were also associated with retailers including Kroger and Whole Foods. (nosh.com)
That is a much stronger basis for describing the company as having grown after Shark Tank than repeating an unverified net-worth number.
Honey Bunchies eventually became Bon Bee Honey
The name change is easy to miss because the original Honey Bunchies website remains online.
The company still describes the bars as "Bon Bee Gourmet Honey Bars (previously known as Honey Bunchies)." Its two principal flavors were Peanut Pecan and Coconut Almond, with honey making up 42% of each bar. (honeybunchies.com)
The business remained family-operated and based in Longmont, Colorado. Its own story describes Ed and Jennifer Payne, Kendra and her brother Edward as central members of the operation. (honeybunchies.com)
That family structure remained important right through the company's final months.
And the ending was not caused by a sudden disappearance from the internet or a mysterious failure to update a website.
The family explicitly announced it.
Honey Bunchies shut down in April 2026 after more than 16 years
On April 1, 2026, Honey Bunchie LLC published a farewell announcement stating that it would conclude operations effective April 30.
The message described the decision as a family decision and thanked customers, retailers and supporters who had helped the company grow. It also put the company's lifespan in perspective: more than 16 years from the original business to the final production run. (honeybunchies.com)
Kendra Bennett subsequently confirmed the shutdown on LinkedIn, saying the family had made the decision intentionally and "on our own terms." (linkedin.com)
The company's remaining inventory was then offered through a farewell sale. By late April, Bennett was also documenting the sale of the commercial kitchen's equipment and describing the final days of production. (linkedin.com)
A trade publication, Nosh, independently reported the shutdown on April 6, citing Bennett's announcement and identifying April 30 as the effective closing date. (nosh.com)
That makes the current status unusually unambiguous: Honey Bunchie LLC is no longer operating as a snack-bar business.
The final sale showed that the audience had not disappeared
There is one last detail that complicates the idea that Honey Bunchies simply "failed."
According to Nosh, the farewell sale moved more than 12,000 bars in less than three days, with one variety selling out in under 24 hours. Those figures came in the company's final wind-down rather than during its growth phase. (linkedin.com)
Bennett also said customers and retailers were asking whether someone had purchased the company and would continue making her father's recipe. Her public posts indicate that the business was being wound down rather than sold to another operator. (linkedin.com)
That distinction matters.
Honey Bunchies did not leave Shark Tank with a Shark-owned turnaround story. It also did not vanish because the Sharks rejected it. The family continued operating, rebranded the product as Bon Bee Honey, expanded distribution and kept making the bars for years.
Then the owners decided to stop.
The most accurate Honey Bunchies update in 2026 is therefore not that the company is "still thriving," as some older update pages suggest. It is that the family built the business considerably after its no-deal Shark Tank appearance, ran it for more than 16 years, and ultimately chose to close Honey Bunchie LLC on April 30, 2026.
The bars that once began with a father trying to recreate his wife's recipe ended not with a Shark investment, but with a family farewell.
