‘Cheeky’ Aussie move to claim m¯anuka name
First they claimed the pavlova and Phar Lap as their own, now Australians are arguing they have the right to use the Ma¯ ori word ma¯ nuka for the expensive honey.
They racheted the dispute up a notch by setting up the Australian Manuka Honey Association last week. ‘‘We’re the only two countries that produce it and the whole world needs it [ma¯ nuka honey]. We can’t understand what our Kiwi friends are trying to do,’’ Australian Honey Bee Industry Council chairman Lindsay Bourke said.
The New Zealand Unique Ma¯ nuka Factor Honey Association (UMFHA) is in the process of applying for exclusive right to the use of the word ma¯ nuka honey.
UMFHA chief executive John Rawcliffe said the Australian move was ‘‘cheeky at best.’’ He understood they would be legally challenging New Zealand’s application for a certification trade mark over the term. If successful, the application would safeguard products unique to regions such as the French champagne and Scotch whisky appellations and give New Zealand marketing efforts a boost.
The honey industry earns $242 million in exports a year, of which ma¯ nuka makes up about 80 per cent. A target has been set of $1.2 billion export revenue for ma¯ nuka honey alone by 2028.
Quoted in Australian rural magazine The Weekly Times, Bourke said there were 80 species of ma¯ nuka in Australia, while New Zealand had ‘‘just one’’, Leptospermum scoparium which was native to New Zealand and Australia.
Australian Honeybee Industry Council executive director Trevor Weatherhead said the word ma¯ nuka had Tasmanian origins ‘‘since the 1800s’’. However, the first official use of the word is later than that. Manuka district in Canberra was named after the Ma¯ ori word for the plant in the early 1900s when there was optimism New Zealand might join Australia in a federation. There is now a Manuka Oval, one of Canberra’s leading sports venues.