Sticky battle over honey
Australian honey producers have gone a long way back in history to ‘‘prove’’ they produced ma¯nuka honey before their Kiwi counterparts.
Their efforts are in preparation for an appeal against New Zealand’s successful move to trademark the term ‘‘ma¯nuka honey’’.
Last month the United Kingdom Trade Mark Registry decided the term ma¯nuka was a Ma¯ori word that referred to the plant Leptospermum scoparium, from which the honey is derived.
Tasmanian Nicola Charles, coowner of Blue Hills Honey, told the ABC that European honey bees were introduced to Tasmania and Australia eight years before New Zealand.
‘‘ Leptospermum scoparium originated in Tasmania and dispersed to New Zealand and lower Victoria, so we feel we have a moral case to still call it ma¯nuka, and not be cut out from a global market that’s got a potential to be a high revenue for Australia.’’
But John Rawcliffe from the New Zealand Ma¯nuka Honey Appellation Society said the argument was not over whether it had been produced longer in Australia, but what it had been called there.
Over the last 30 years New Zealand has invested heavily in the marketing of ma¯nuka honey internationally. The industry is predicted to grow to $1 billion by 2030.
By contrast in Australia the honey is named after the common term for the plant there, ‘‘tea tree’’. Jellybush honey comes from another Leptospermum species. On her company’s website Charles acknowledges this. She writes that ‘‘tea tree ( Leptospermum scoparium) is a shrub which occurs along the south east coast of Australia, in Tasmania and in New Zealand, where it is called ma¯nuka’’.
And on a history timeline, she refers to the fact that in 2009 there was a launch of the ‘‘new line Tasmanian Ma¯nuka Honey’’.
Rawcliffe said the naming rights were similar to those the French had battled for over the right to describe their sparkling wine as Champagne or cheese as Roquefort.
‘‘Let’s assume, because it is a very hardy plant, that it is grown in China, Argentina or Spain. Then we have a big problem. We need to be able to differentiate, describe and deliver to the consumer what is unique from New Zealand’s land.’’
Australians were free to use the Aboriginal term for the plant, Rawcliffe said, although there does not appear to be a recognised one. Paul Callander from the Australian Ma¯nuka Honey Association said it had engaged lawyers in the UK to defend Australian producers’ right to use the term, and was being supported financially by the Federal government.
‘‘We didn’t ask for this battle, we’d much prefer to partner and work with New Zealand rather than fight about it.’’