Dandelions and Daisies
- Bruce Roscoe
- Oct 3
- 6 min read
Updated: Oct 4
This is a companion article to Comvita, UMFHA & the Australian Question which appeared in our September edition. Here, Bruce Roscoe finds similarities as stark as differences in the Australian and New Zealand honey industries. Though at times portrayed as hostile, Australia represents an indispensable market, ranking as New Zealand’s fourth-largest customer for honey (all types) and largest by far buyer of retail pack non-manuka honey.
By Bruce Roscoe
The Australian honey industry appears as a dandelion to New Zealand daisies. Rich in species and subspecies number, dandelions, though unfairly unloved as a weed, are nonetheless edible and colourful, even if monochromatic.
One side of a two-sided mirror reflects issues that also debilitate New Zealand beekeeping. Seven items are posted on the landing page under the Australian Honey Bee Industry Council’s (AHBIC) website’s News tab — six are loud varroa news updates and the headliner announces the discovery of deformed wing virus in Western Australia.
But the two industries share more than biosecurity threats. The AHBIC 2025 year annual report notes a fall in the number of registered beehives (by 13% in the largest honey-producing state of New South Wales where varroa is most rampant), honey prices that are “sitting close to the cost of production”, industry levies that are “not deemed fair”, and cancellation of the National Bee Congress planned for Adelaide in 2026 due to “growing financial pressures”.
New Zealand beekeepers and honey packers will not recognise themselves in the other side of the mirror, which projects an industry whose profitability is secured by the import, processing, and sale of low-cost imported honeys into a retail market more than four times larger than New Zealand’s.[1]
The Indian government’s decision to enforce a honey export floor price of USD2,000 per tonne from March to December 2004 was described by the Honey Packers and Marketers Association of Australia (HPMAA) as “the major development in the international honey market” for that year.[2]
“Imported honeys packed here in Australia continue to offer increased value for consumers and for bulk industrial segments”, Ben McKee, who pulls double duty as HPMAA president and Hive & Wellness Pty Ltd chief operating officer, wrote in the latest AHBIC annual report. As though balancing on a tightrope, he added: “…however the vast majority of consumers continue to choose Australian honey”.
AHBIC is moving to set up a “fighting fund” for the testing of imported honey products for adulteration. Australia typically imports 7,500-8,500 tonnes of honey a year, about double the volume it exports. Most imports are sourced from China, Thailand, Malaysia, Vietnam, and India at AUD1.50-3.00 per kilogram. New Zealand is also a major source of supply but at prices yo-yoing from NZD15-35 per kilogram.
Although the New Zealand honey industry is driven by export demand, domestic demand is the engine turning over the Australian industry. Not that HPMAA is neglecting offshore markets. “Year to date (31 March 2025) we have exported 2,695t of export retail, which is 603t (+29%) greater than the same period last year… honey product exports from Australia were $64.5m versus $58.7m (+9.9%) for the same period last year”, Mr McKee recorded for the AHBIC report.
Manuka honey is a focal point but something is missing. Outgoing AHBIC chair Stephen Targett observed that while average honey prices were “around the $4.50 kg level” in the 2024 season due to “major packers having excess Australian honey in their warehouses”, “Jarrah and Manuka honey still demand a premium.”
Mr McKee wrote: “…we are seeing good market share growth for Australian Manuka honeys” and “Pharmacy honey sales continue to grow at 9.5% as more Australian Manuka honey is sold.”
Missing is any contribution from the Australian Manuka Honey Association (AMHA) to the AHBIC report, which collates reports from the apiarists associations of New South Wales, Victoria, and South Australia, the beekeepers associations of Queensland and Tasmania, the Bee Industry Council of Western Australia, the Amateur Beekeeping Association of New South Wales, HPMAA, the Australian Queen Bee Breeders Association, and the Crop Pollination Association of Australia.
Neither do earlier year AHBIC reports include AMHA, whose website, copyrighted to 2022, appears frozen in time.
Goliath & David
The difference in export scale between the industries is Goliath David, in that order. Comvita’s Ltd’s monofloral manuka honey export value alone nearly doubles that for total Australian honey exports — approx. NZD133m v. AUD66m (NZD73m) in the June 2024 year. The New Zealand total value (NZD414m; December 2024 year) is 5.7 times greater (after adjusting for currency value difference).
For all the ill will engendered by the manuka honey certification trademark case, Australia is a door open to New Zealand honey. The continent is fourth-largest export market, taking 1,202.5 tonnes worth NZD32.9m (Dec. 2024 year). It is one of the club of six which each annually imports more than 1,000 tonnes of New Zealand honey (US, UK, China, Germany, and Japan are the five other members. Below them, importing country volumes fall to the 300-tonne and lower volumes.)
Australia is the more notable for providing the largest outlet for New Zealand retail pack non-manuka honey types — 410.1 tonnes (value: NZD6.3m; Dec. 2024 year). That export volume accounted for 41.8% of total volume in the category.
Droughts, floods, bushfires, and forcibly reduced intra- and interstate hive movements due to varroa infestations, have cut Australian honey production. New Zealand, already a sizeable shipper of manuka honey across the Tasman, can expect demand to climb.
Tables 1 and 2 show the record of retail pack and bulk monofloral and multifloral manuka honey exports to Australia since CY2019 (the first full year for which Ministry for Primary Industries’ (MPI) scientific definitions for manuka honey were applied to exports).
In the bulk monofloral and multifloral category, volumes and prices are all over the show. Prices as low as NZD6.37 a kilogram suggest the dumping of whiskery or poorly documented manuka or both. The data seem to say, “We can send anything to Australia”. Within Australia, anything can happen — one can blend with imported honeys for re-export, among other permutations — as beyond 12 nautical miles from the coast, MPI’s scientific definitions mean little and are legally weightless.
Australia does not enforce scientific definitions. Rather, AMHA sets two bars so low that a cricketer bowling underarm could bounce a ball over them. AMHA allows use of its "Authorised" mark on the labels of manuka honey products that contain a minimum 30 milligrams of methylglyoxal per kilogram of honey and its "Authentic" mark on product that contains a minimum 60 mg/kg. By contrast, the lowest UMF rating begins at 81 mg/kg and mānuka honey containing more than even 100 mg/kg often does not meet MPI’s monofloral definition.
Nostalgia wells for an earlier time. The Australian market may be just the ticket. If we say the honey is manuka, it is!
New Zealand beekeepers may more align with daisies than dandelions. A symbol of innocence and new beginnings, daisies sensibly sleep through the night and open with the sun. What to do with dandelions? Best to think twice before blowing out a seedhead. Some wishes are not meant to come true, and Australia is both customer and cousin.
Websites referenced in this report
(1) Australian Honey Bee Industry Council
The AHBIC’s 2025 year and earlier annual reports can be downloaded from under the Publications tab.
(2) The honey and beeswax report produced by the NSW Government’s Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development can be seen in this link.
(3) Australian Manuka Honey Association’s standards are seen here.
‡Suggested reading
“Australian Honey Bee Industry Council investigates concerns about imported honey”. By Brandon Long. ABC Rural. 4 Feb 2024
References
[1] New Zealand retail expenditure in the year to June 2025 totaled NZD120b, compared with AUD444b for Australia, according to Reserve Bank of New Zealand and Australian Bureau of Statistics data.
Australian Bureau of Statistics and Reserve Bank of New Zealand.
[2] Ben McKee, president, Honey Packers and Marketers Association of Australia, in Australian Honey Bee Industry Council 2024 year annual report, p 26.
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