A Farewell to King Honey

By Bruce Roscoe

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.

All Black Beauden Barrett once was a Me Today brand ambassador.

Me Today has not produced net profits in any year – either before or after its acquisition of King Honey – since achieving a listing on NZX through being indirectly acquired by the listed shell company, CSM Group Ltd (CSM abbreviates China Scrap Metals) in March 2020.

Though the financial engineering behind Me Today Ltd’s genesis is complicated, the condition of King Honey at the time of its sale was unclouded. The company had capacity to produce more than 350 tonnes of honey a year from 18,000 hives placed across the North Island and upper South Island.

King Honey employed around 77 staff – seven at two queen bee rearing operations, five regional beekeeping managers and 37 beekeepers at five leased apiary facilities, 27 at the processing, packing, and storage plant in Taupo, and three in sales and four in finance at the Auckland head office. Most of those facilities and staff positions are or will be disestablished.

What remains is an estimated 400-440 tonne inventory of several-years-old honey and a debt to creditors of a reported NZD13.5m.

Those blinkered to the risks inherent in honey production and fickle nature of markets would see an illusory array of stars. King Honey was the brain child of Terry Jarvis, a former test match cricketer and, among other business feats, co-founder of Sky Network Television Ltd.

A Me Today website blogpost sports a photo of star All Black Beauden Barrett clutching a jar of honey. Under the photo the text reads, “WHAT BEAUDEN IS DOING, EATING, WATCHING AND MORE. Hi Beauden! How are you doing?” Me Today announced the three-year Barrett brand ambassador contract to NZX on 15 June 2020. Barrett’s management agency, Halo Sport Ltd, confirmed on 11 June that “Beauden is no longer an Ambassador for Me Today”.

In full beekeeping attire, former prime minister Sir John Key promotes the Bee+ mānuka honey brand, which is jointly owned by Me Today Ltd.

An image of former prime minister Sir John Key, in protective beekeeping attire, radiates a silent reassurance from the website of Bee+, a brand jointly owned by Me Today and China interests. A Facebook post showing Key making an appeal – bookended by greetings in Chinese – for Bee+ mānuka honey is still viewable.

But names at the summit of summer and winter sports and politics were not enough.

As at 30 June 2024, Me Today recorded shareholders’ equity of NZD3.6m, down 85.1% from NZD24.1m just two years earlier. Accumulated losses at the same balance sheet date amounted to NZD51.7m and net losses to the year ended June 2024 at NZD11.3m were more than double revenues of NZD5m.

In the same year – the final year for King Honey – honey revenues of NZD2.5m accounted for 49.9% of Me Today total revenues. At the operating cash flow level, 74 cents was lost for every dollar of honey sold.   

Commodification

The demise of King Honey has occurred against a backdrop of falling export prices for retail pack monofloral mānuka honey and madcap growth in exports of bulk monofloral mānuka honey. Both features point to the commodification of a once uncommon resource. 

In the first half of this calendar year, export prices for monofloral mānuka honey to the five largest markets of United States, China, United Kingdom, Japan, and Germany declined 2.5% for US (to NZD43.68 per kilogram); 1.4% for China (NZD57.74); 15.9% for UK (NZD56.74); 27.2% for Japan (NZD50.44); and 16.0% for Germany (NZD62.89). Total exports in this category grew 14.3% to 2,837 tonnes on a value decline of 10.2% to NZD146.5m. (All comparisons with calendar year 2024 first half.)

CY2025 1H bulk monofloral mānuka honey exports to UK grew 20.7% to 311.4 tonnes; Germany, 65.5% (179.9t); Japan, 34.5% (77.4t); US, 87.6% (58.2t); and for Australia, the volume exploded from 295kg to 23.4t. Total exports in this category reached 704.4 tonnes, up 22.2%. The average price achieved was NZD21.33 per kilogram, down 7.2% and a discount of 51.9% to the NZD51.63/kg returned from exports of retail pack monofloral mānuka honey. (All comparisons with CY2024 1H.)