Feuding manuka industry unites in tough times
Manuka honey producers are struggling with a double whammy as a poor harvest and dip in demand combine to hit the bottom line.
Fortnum & Mason, grocer to the Queen, pulled its own-branded manuka honey after scientific testing led a British newspaper to question the quality of manuka honey being sold to UK consumers.
The fresh stain on the reputation of the manuka honey industry led the Ministry of Primary Industries (MPI) to announce the fast-tracking of a plan to DNA test ‘‘monofloral’’ honeys like manuka prior to export.
But faced with uncertainty, nervous overseas buyers have now scaled back on purchases, which is hurting manuka honey producers already having to cope with the worst harvest in ten years.
‘‘The result of the (MPI) science programme is beekeepers cannot sell honey at the current time, most of the export packers have withdrawn from the market - period,’’ said Jason Prior from family-owned honey business Downunder Honey.
‘‘For those who are buying, prices are down 30-40 per cent on last season and manuka is almost unsaleable. And this is in a season when volumes are down 70 per cent, we suspect more like 80 per cent should the late manuka fail.’’
Bad weather is the cause of this year’s low manuka harvest.
‘‘There will be a lot of beekeepers going back to the bank,’’ he predicts.
Many new entrants to the industry, which had been booming, have borrowed heavily to get established.
‘‘We will survive. We just won’t spend anything, and we’ll go to the bank to increase the overdraft a bit more,’’ Prior said.
There are signs that the division among manuka honey producers is easing in the face of the threat to the industry’s reputation overseas. For around a decade the industry was riven with infighting, but it has largely united behind MPI’s drive towards setting a general requirement that manuka honey can only be exported once it has been independently verified as pure enough. John Kippenberger, chief executive of Manuka Health, backed the MPI testing plans saying there was a window of opportunity for the industry to get things right, if the Government target of growing manuka honey exports to $1.2 billion within a decade is to be achieved.
‘‘We are very positive about the work MPI is doing around the science to give consumers trust around the world in the authenticity of New Zealand manuka honey,’’ Kippenberger said.
‘‘Our view is we are at a really important time for the industry to come together to ensure that this wonderful industry ... can realise its potential.’’