With the US market leaping into the lead as New Zealand’s largest consumer of mānuka honey, we ask some of the country’s largest honey exporters, along with the UMF Honey Association (UMFHA) who promotes Kiwi beekeepers’ most valuable product, what is driving the growth and if it is likely to continue.

Finding itself with money on both sides of a US trademark case (as detailed in Mānuka Charitable Trust Scores Own Goal in Trademark Attack on Comvita Mānuka Honey Cosmetics), Comvita Ltd. has formally requested that Mānuka Charitable Trust (MCT) withdraws their opposition to the Caravan Honey Co. application. However, MCT has confirmed they will be following their process, claiming the integrity of New Zealand’s mānuka honey is at stake.

Mānuka Charitable Trust (MCT) has upended a four-year Comvita marketing effort in the US by opposing “THE MĀNUKA EFFECT” trademark application. A suite of Comvita mānuka honey cosmetics is sold under that pending trademark. A joint venture between Comvita and Hollywood A-lister-linked Caravan Digital sponsored the creation of the cosmetics. MCT failed to see the New Zealand connection. Bruce Roscoe reports.

Comvita’s shareholders have denied the wishes of both their board and biggest shareholders to vote down the takeover bid of Florenz and one of New Zealand’s wealthiest people, Mark Stewart, in a decision that pushes New Zealand’s largest honey company closer to receivership.

As the group tasked with protecting mānuka honey from offshore exploitation continues its work, a Mānuka Charitable Trust Symposium to reaffirm their position was held on September 26.

In our June edition report “Australian Attack ‘Disrespectful and Misleading’, Says Mānuka Charitable Trust”, we laid bare the awkward truth of the intimate relationship between Hive & Wellness Australia Pty Ltd and Comvita Ltd. In this report, Bruce Roscoe sketches the historical context of that closeness and unearths a trove of details that illuminate the fullness of the cooperation.

Me Today Ltd, a dietary supplements brand company, on 28 July announced it had appointed receivers and liquidators to its beleaguered, wholly owned subsidiary King Honey Ltd. Me Today, which is listed on NZX, acquired King Honey for NZD36.0m in June 2021.

The owner of Capilano, Australia's biggest-selling manuka honey brand, has launched a blistering attack on New Zealand manuka honey, throwing facts and decorum to the wind and sinking trans-Tasman honey ties to a new low.

The Capilano Honey leaflet that berates New Zealand mānuka honey as inferior to Australian mānuka honey in seven categories reads as an enemy act. Yet from the viewpoint of marketers, Capilano has done the right thing.

Bulk monofloral mānuka honey exports reached a record 1,471tonnes in CY2024, an increase of 54.3% over the CY2023 volume. The United...

With bulk monofloral mānuka honey exports hitting record levels in 2024, we talk to a range of honey producers, packers and exporters to...

A seemingly sidelined player in the shakeup of industry representation in recent months, the Mānuka Charitable Trust (MCT) held a...

Two beekeepers who were among the group of six who first sat around a table and coined the association that is now UMF share their thoughts

Mānuka Charitable Trust has been called the “national guardian” of mānuka. So, what role have they been playing in industry restructuring...

Mānuka honey pioneer Phil Caskey shares his vision for a better UMF™ brand and a better mānuka honey industry...

A recent survey of UMF™ branded mānuka honey in China and Singapore by UMFHA returned what has been described as “an alarming number of...

Based on the experience of long hot Tokyo days and nights, Bruce Roscoe outlines the measures traders and distributors can take to protect..

UMFHA explain their promotional concept "New Zealand Mānuka Honey Day", celebrated November 4...

Looming over a seriously depressed mānuka honey market is what has variously been described as a honey “oversupply’, “stockpile, “surplus”.

While the New Zealand Honey industry bandies about vast ranges for potential honey inventory volumes, Bruce Roscoe explores how...