The manuka sticking point
Australians have been accused of ‘stealing’ the term manuka honey as the battle for a share of an expected $1 billion market heats up. Gerard Hutching reports.
There’s a lot at stake when it comes to defining what constitutes New Zealand’s valuable honey market: the value of exports is worth $350 million a year and projected to rise to
$1 billion in 10 years.
The industry is divided over the way forward, although the Unique Ma¯ nuka Factor Association claims to speak for
80 per cent of producers. Kiwi honey producers have spent three years working with the Ministry for Primary Industries to develop a definition of what constitutes real ma¯ nuka honey, after complaints that consumers were being sold adulterated honey at exorbitant prices, and that producers were elevating honey potency through artificial means.
Australian beekeepers who have observed the eye-watering prices ma¯ nuka honey fetches in overseas markets – in China it can be as much as $500 for a
500-gram jar – want to be part of the action.
Never mind that ma¯ nuka honey as a term never existed in Australia, where it was traditionally known as tea tree or jelly bush honey. The Australian Ma¯ nuka Honey Association was created only two years ago to represent producers across the Tasman.
Now the Australians have developed their own ‘‘mark of authenticity’’, which New Zealand says falls well short of the standard set in this country.
Since March last year, most Kiwi producers who want to export ma¯ nuka honey have had it tested for whether it is the genuine article against the MPI definition.
AMHA chairman Paul Callander sounds a conciliatory tone over the phone from Perth, where he runs the company Ma¯ nukaLife.
‘‘We’ve put the olive branch out and asked if we could partner with you, but we’ve been rebuffed by the UMF people.’’
New Zealand’s UMFA was established in 1998, about the time it created the UMF trademark, designed to signify the potency of different honeys.
Last year it successfully won a landmark decision in the United Kingdom to register the term ‘‘ma¯ nuka honey’’ for certification trade marking, a ruling the Australians are challenging with the help of
$165,000 from the federal Government.
The United Kingdom Trade Mark Registry concluded the term ‘‘ma¯ nuka’’ was a Ma¯ ori word used to refer to the plant Leptospermum scoparium. ‘‘Although the plant Leptospermum scoparium is grown in areas outside of New Zealand, it is known by different ‘common’ names in those territories. Therefore, it is accepted that the term ‘ma¯ nuka’ would be seen as designating a specific plant variety grown in New Zealand.’’
UMFA chief executive John Rawcliffe is scathing of the Australians’ attempts to make the term their own.
‘‘Ma¯ nuka is not just a word like ‘door’; it has a massive personal meaning to Ma¯ ori. Like Tane, it is part of the creation story. So they’re taking part of the creation story and bastardising it.’’
Callander visited New Zealand recently to gain support for his association, and to meet some Ma¯ ori. But the trip has been dubbed ‘‘mischief making’’ by Rawcliffe and Victor Goldsmith, the general manager of honey business Nga¯ ti Porou Miere, who is also an associate director of UMFA.
‘‘I know who he met with when he came to New Zealand.’’ Goldsmith says in his view that person is representing his own self-interest and does not represent the views of
Ma¯ oridom.
The person in question is Harvey Bell, chairman of the Waipakuranui Incorporation and a financial analyst.
Bell’s motivations are unclear, but what is clear is that he now owns the rights to a number of ma¯ nuka-related domain names: ma¯ nuka.co.nz, ma¯ nuka.com, maanuka.
He says he has proposed setting up an authentication system using a barcode that will link back to the MPI test.
Rawcliffe says UMFA lodged trademarks in the territories in which it sells and lodged it with capital letters: MANUKA. ‘‘By lodging first, and in capitals, by convention this covers variations in spelling, use of macrons etc. Mr Bell owning one or two variations in domain rights is inconsequential to the legal holding of certification trademarks – domain registration is completely separate from trademark registration.’’
As for why Bell had bothered to register the domain names, Rawcliffe speculates: ‘‘Many people spend their time tracking patents and investing in different domain names in the hope they can one day sell them for a high margin. I am certain if you had the chance to cheaply purchase nike.com, you would consider it a good investment – this is the way of the world.’’
The other charge levelled at the Australians is that they want to dilute the genuineness of ma¯ nuka by adopting a different mark of authenticity. And furthermore, they want it to apply to all of the Leptospermum species.
There are 87 in the world, of which 83 occur in Australia. New Zealand has just the one, Leptospermum scoparium, which also grows in Australia.
Rawcliffe sees red over this broadening out of the definition of ma¯ nuka honey.
‘‘They’re breaching scientific principles by broadening the term Leptospermum; it’s like calling every dog a dingo. The species L. scoparium is totally
different to the rest of the plants they are naming as ma¯ nuka.’’
He also takes issue with the way the Australians label their honey, through stating the levels of methylglyoxal (MGO) only, which is one way of measuring potency. Most New Zealand producers have graded the honey according to its unique ma¯ nuka factor (UMF).
Several years ago, there were reports of ma¯ nuka honey being adulterated with MGO and exported to China. While it is manufactured by bees when they make honey, MGO can also be made in a laboratory, and is a common chemical in sun tanning products and as a flavouring agent.
Adam Boot, international brand manager for Canterbury company Midland Apiaries, worries the different definitions will confuse consumers – as if they weren’t already. Midland has just launched a new ma¯ nuka honey brand called Puriti.
He cites the example of UK company Holland & Barrett, which describes itself as ‘‘one of the world’s leading health and wellness retailers and the largest in Europe’’.
Following meetings with Australian producers last year, Holland & Barrett decided to change its labelling, focusing on MGO levels.
Public relations consultant Olivia Smith wrote in an email to Stuff: ‘‘We know that our customers found the two previous scales of ma¯ nuka measurement (active and UMF) confusing, as the two numbers did not correlate to one another. This is one of the reasons why we decided to measure the antimicrobial properties of the honey by using the MGO scale, a scale recognised as valid by the MPI prior to their new definition.
‘To ensure imported product is compliant with the MGO ratings stated on the product label, we use an independent Government-validated testing lab called FERA, who batch-test every single shipment we receive to test the MGO level before the product is sold.’’
Boot says the implication is that MGO is part of the New Zealand definition, when it is not.
‘‘The result they are aiming for is to convince the consumer to look only for MGO. They will then start introducing cheaper Australian product.
‘‘Even if Australia loses the right to use the word ma¯ nuka, H&B will have hedged their bets. Ma¯ nuka will no longer be the key selling point – it will have been replaced by MGO.’’
Meanwhile, the Australians are forging ahead with plant breeding programmes to develop top producing hybrids, and create plantations, just as New Zealand is.
SOUND SCIENCE?
The arguments around the genuineness of ma¯ nuka honey are nothing if not scientifically complicated.
MPI’s definition is made up of a combination of four chemical markers from nectar, and one DNA marker from ma¯ nuka pollen. They are used to identify honey as either monofloral or multifloral, and to separate ma¯ nuka honey from other types.
Monofloral honey comes from one flower, while multifloral honey is from the nectar of many flowers.
The latter is blended by the bees as they fly from one variety of flower to another, or may have been mixed by the beekeeper or processing factory.
For the Australians, the key is the amount of MGO in the honey, which inhibits the growth of bacteria. Some ma¯ nuka honeys have 100 times more MGO than others, supposedly making them a powerful natural antibiotic.
New Zealand honey makers have long used the UMF grading system, denoting the levels of antibacterial activity, and ranging from UMF5+ through to UMF25+.
WHO FILCHES MY GOOD NAME
James Cook’s botanists Banks and Solander were the first Europeans to collect ma¯ nuka and note its Ma¯ ori name. However, since New Zealand had no honey bees, there was no such thing as ma¯ nuka honey.
In fact, Australian beekeepers claim the first ma¯ nuka honey was made in Australia because honey bees were introduced there in 1822, well before they were brought to New Zealand, 1839.
But Australians did not call it ma¯ nuka honey; rather it was tea tree or jelly bush honey, the popular names of L. scoparium.
The first Australian use of the word ma¯ nuka was in the 1860s, after gold diggers returned from New Zealand, having seen the plant there and recognised it as the same one that occurs across the Tasman. It has since been used as a geographical name, for example for a Canberra suburb and sports ground.
Only in the past three decades has ma¯ nuka honey become popular, after scientists identified its anti-bacterial properties.
Victor Goldsmith has a solution for Australia: it could use one of the Aboriginal names the plant is known by – the attractive sounding kallara.