Better Honey, Better Businesses and a Better Industry – Mānuka Orchard Can, Will, and Is Helping

    ADVERTORIAL: MĀNUKA ORCHARD    

Mānuka Orchard owner Logan Bowyer might have grown up on an orchard of a different kind – kiwifruit – but his dedication to the cause of bettering New Zealand’s honey industry is now well proven through his Paengaroa business. Eight years in, Mānuka Orchard is calling on any beekeepers wanting to improve their honey quality, business profitability and industry representation to utilise their wide range of services.

“We want to partner with more beekeepers who are committed to the industry and committed to shaping their business into the best it can be,” says Bowyer, who owns and directs Mānuka Orchard.

“To do that, there are skills and expertise beyond the beehive that we can offer which, currently, beekeepers may be operating less than optimally at.”

“If you’ve got goals, then we have too,” says Mānuka Orchard’s Logan Bowyer to beekeepers.

Growing up on an orchard in the Bay of Plenty beehives were often about and then, after working as a fabricating engineer in some of the country’s largest honey processing facilities, Bowyer learned more about the honey industry and saw an opportunity.

“Our honey in New Zealand is the most valuable honey in the world and, while it is a product that requires little processing compared to other foods, it is essential we handle it optimally. There is a lot of value to be gained in maximising its value, but I learned quickly that the resources to do that can be expensive, and the expertise required difficult to obtain. One or both of them are often beyond beekeeping businesses’ capabilities.”

Therefore, Mānuka Orchard was brought to existence by he and wife Tania Bowyer in 2018 and it soon became the country’s most trusted honey storage facility. Now, approaching a decade in business, their services continue to expand: extraction; blending; moisture reduction; creaming; and packing. It doesn’t stop there though, with Mānuka Orchard now matching honey stored on site with buyers, providing beekeepers with access to honey buyers they likely never would have connected with.

Who Should Partner with Mānuka Orchard?

“If beekeepers are looking for better returns, a positive direction for their beekeeping business and sustainable prices for their honey from buyers who are taking a positive approach to the industry, then they should make a call to Mānuka Orchard,” Bowyer explains.

For many beekeepers that connection can start with extraction, and the Paengaroa facility is growing its capabilities there, while already spinning out the boxes of 30 beekeepers this past season.

“There are many beekeepers with their own extraction facilities who we deal with once the honey is in a drum though,” Bowyer explains.

“If they are having fermentation issues then don’t open the drum, send it to us, and we can help solve that problem without the risk of product loss. Or if they need honey packed, then we provide that service too. Appropriate storage of mānuka honey for growth is also essential and we have the heated or cool rooms to suit the honey’s needs. But, the real value is added through optimal blending programmes.”

And that’s a bit of a pet-peeve of Bowyer – beekeepers who are not maximising their honey returns by either not blending, or doing it poorly, when Mānuka Orchard can be called on to assist.

Nowhere in New Zealand will honey buyers and sellers find a more comprehensive and user-friendly trading platform than at www.manukaorchard.com

“It is a complicated equation to understand what the buyers are seeking, what they are paying and how a beekeeper can maximise their returns by getting the most out of their own portfolio of honey, but also other honey that is out there in the market place which could compliment it from a blending perspective,” he says.

“On the shelves there might be UMF 5+, 10+, 15+ and 20+, but there is honey in every grade between those. Are you maximising the value of your honey when it lies between those grades? Are you getting it to where it needs to be and do you know if there is more or less value in each range?”

Finding the Buyers

While the facility might have launched to provide physical solutions to honey processing, it fast morphed into a venue which honey buyers could approach to find what they need. That has led to the launch of an interactive website to assist the connection which is now a big part of the services offered and another opportunity for beekeepers to maximise returns.

“We have a platform to list your honey on to and that is getting easier and easier to use, and easier for the buyers to get exactly what they need. So, if you produce and sell honey, but would prefer someone else to sell it on your behalf, then that’s our role,” Bowyer says.

“I have spoken to a lot of beekeepers recently who have said they have ignored every honey buyer coming to them in the last few months because they have just been too focused on their bees. If they just give us some parameters then I can review the offers and only bring them to the beekeeper once those parameters are reached – selling made easy, and in many cases, more profitable.”

The Bigger Picture

Never ones to rest on their laurels, the Bowyers have come to understand that to fully realise the value in New Zealand’s honey industry, beekeepers will need better representation. Therefore bridging relationships with landowners will become more of a focus moving forward too.

“We have dropped off as an industry in many respects, but we are about to grow up again. Unfortunately we have let some landowners down in the last 10 years through a lack of honey production and payment to them. We will likely have an under supply of honey over the next five years … what we need is realistic and honest pricing to landowners, it means true and accurate pricing which is visible through our online platform.”

Mānuka Orchard has long held an annual open day to help bring beekeepers, suppliers and scientists together and will do so again on July 24. Before then though, their industry representation will go to the next level with a stand at Fieldays 2026 at Mystery Creek, June 10-13.

Logan and Tania Bowyer launched Mānuka Orchard as a honey processing and storage facility in 2018 but it has now merged into much more than that, and they are now calling on beekeepers who wish to improve their honey, businesses and the wider industry to work alongside them.

“That will provide a presence at a business-to-business level. We want to talk to landowners, growers requiring pollination and experts from other industries about the synergy between apiculture and their fields,” Bowyer explains.

It signifies the growing dedication of Mānuka Orchard to not just creating the best possible honey and returns to the producers of that honey, but a sense of sustainability and stability in the honey industry going forward.

Bowyer sums it up – “If you’ve got goals, then we have too”.