What Should Beekeepers Expect to be Paid for their Honey this Year?

As a years-long honey glut diminishes from storage around New Zealand, and beekeepers report a below average – or certainly no-better-than-average – national crop this summer, sentiment is strong that honey prices to its producers will be on the up. While it might be time for many beekeepers to finally recover from years of below-cost-of-production sales, some are advocating for turning the focus towards building a sustainable industry for all.

With no publicly shared data on honey prices – outside of broadly defined export statistics – empirically determining prices paid to beekeepers is impossible. However, sentiment from both the producers of honey and the packers who buy it from them is that prices in 2026 are surging up.

“I don’t have a horse in the race, but I have spoken to numerous beekeepers recently who have said the phone has been ringing a lot more with potential buyers,” says Nick Taylor, general manager of New Zealand Beeswax.

Those who very much have “horses in the race” come to the same conclusion. Don Tweeddale, owner of one of the country’s largest beekeeping business, Tweeddale’s Honey in the Central North Island, says since January he has received at least half a dozen calls enquiring about his honey and over that period the price for “bush” has risen more than a dollar to now over $8/kg. While in Canterbury James Malcolm, owner of Natural New Zealand Honey, calls some of the prices he has been hearing as “crazy”. James Annabell, chief executive of Egmont Honey, one of the country’s largest honey exporters, says it’s “no secret, we are seeing prices grow”.

Buyers Getting in Quick

The mood around the industry is that the price increase will be across both mānuka and non-mānuka honey.

“We have seen some green mānuka moved out of our shed on a scale that hasn’t happened for many years,” Marshwood Apiaries owner Richard Kidd says from Northland.

Don Tweeddale, owner Tweeddale's Honey.

The contract honey extraction and processing specialist says he is not sure whether buyers are looking to grow out the “green” honey – that with a DHA and MGO ratio which should see the former convert to the latter over time – to hedge against low supply in the coming season, or whether it is intended for immediate use, potentially as a blend with honey from past seasons.

“It could be a bit of both, but it is definitely a departure from recent seasons to see it moving so early from sheds. It is nothing but a good thing for producers though after years of below break-even prices,” Kidd says.

Buyers are looking for non-mānuka honey aggressively too it seems.

“We’ve got a big, strong movement upwards because there is competition out there for bush honey,” Tweeddale reports.

Those buyers have been looking in Northland too.

“The problem is, we don’t have a lot of it as it hasn’t been produced in Northland this year on the scale it used to be. That is a result of the honey price for bush honey being suppressed in recent years. There just hasn’t been an incentive to produce it,” Kidd says.

A Shift in Fortunes?

Despite a lack of empirical industry data, the reason for that suppression has been obvious – an imbalance between supply and demand. That began in earnest in 2018 with the introduction of the Ministry for Primary industries’ (MPI) mānuka honey export standard which coincided with the country’s beehive numbers peaking at 918,000 in 2019. The new standard saw non-mānuka prices to the beekeeper tumble to around $3/kg from reported highs of $14 in the 2010s. Post-Covid, mānuka prices also entered a downward spiral as a bumper production year in 2020 (estimated at 27,000 tonnes by MPI, 4000 tonnes greater than any estimate before or since) was followed by softening demand for mānuka honey globally between 2022 and 2024.

New Zealand's honey exports hit a record total level in 2025, but at a lower per-kg value than recent years.

In 2025 honey export volumes bounced back strongly though and in both the third and fourth quarter were 25% higher than in the 2024 year. While per/kg values were down in 2025, record total export returns were achieved (hitting NZD450m total for the year) thanks to the high volumes shipped out.

Apiculture New Zealand policy analyst Phil Edmonds believes that honey supply and demand are probably now close to a balance, and expects that most of the honey built up in the 2020s has now been used or sold.

“Given the general production forecast for this season is an average, or slightly below average, one, and at the same time a significant jump in export sales has occurred, particularly in the last six months, there's likely to be more competition for fresh honey than the industry has seen since pre-Covid. Theoretically, that would put upward pressure on producer prices,” Edmonds says.

Clawing Towards Break-Even

Cool and wet weather has limited honey production over much of the country since Christmas, and the size of the production base has dropped dramatically in recent years. The count now amounts to 501,000 as beekeepers have downsized businesses or left the industry due to honey prices below cost of production.

That cost of production differs between businesses, especially so when considering fickle mānuka sites which can be hard to reach and costly to obtain. For many though, it appears the non-mānuka honey price paid to some may soon eclipse beekeeper’s output for the first time in the best part of a decade.

“It has to be a minimum of $8 a kilogram,” says Tweeddale, who holds more than half a century of beekeeping experience.

“That is the cost of production per hive, excluding vehicle renewal or anything capital like that. Just to run a hive is $7.80 per kilogram, based on 35 kilograms of honey per hive.”

At Mānuka Orchard honey extraction and processing facility in the Bay of Plenty, owner Logan Bowyer encourages beekeepers to calculate and understand their cost of production when assessing honey offers.

“Beekeepers should expect whatever it costs them to produce the honey, plus 30 percent. That is the reality of running a good business. Then you negotiate the 30 percent down, or up, depending on the season,” Bowyer says.

“It is amazing how many beekeepers cannot tell you what it costs them to produce their honey.”

At Ashburton Apiaries owner Geoff Bongard says even at $8/kg that is below cost of production, while up in Northland Kidd says it takes at least $8 to incentivise his beekeeping clients.

“If the bush price gets above $8 a kg the beekeepers who come through this shed say that is when they are incentivised to spin it out, rather than leave it on the hives as feed honey. Spin it out, sell it, and feed sugar where needed ... Whether that works for producers is another thing…” Kidd says.

Packers’ Concerns

And that’s just it, New Zealand’s honey industry lost access to retail “shelf-space” when honey prices boomed in the 2010s and sellers favoured other international honeys. While it is early days on price improvements to beekeepers – and for many it could still sit below cost of production – packers are encouraging beekeepers to take a longer-term view to honey price sustainability, as are some beekeepers.

Egmont Honey chief executive James Annabell.

Annabell, whose Egmont Honey supplies major retailers such as Costco and Walmart in the USA, Holland & Barrett in the UK, plus Woolworths and Chemist Warehouse in Australia and New Zealand, also has concerns that price increases to producers may not be able to be passed on to retailers.

“We are actively trying to push price rises through to the retailers,” he says from London.

“I have flown 30-something hours to come here for one meeting, with Holland & Barrett, to try and push through a price rise to one of my key retailers. You can’t say we are not trying to advocate for the beekeeper to get paid better money.”

Supply agreements with such retailers can last several years though, putting the major packers under pressure when procurement prices jump.

“When you see price expectations jump exponentially, it is really hard to push that through. I do worry that, sometimes, when things get short people pay silly money for honey and it sets a new baseline. Then, all of a sudden, the retailer says ‘get off my shelf’,” Annabell says.

Egmont Honey holds more than 1000 tonnes of honey in storage though, to hedge against season-to-season fluctuations. With a further eye to the future, they are also offering up multi-year supply contracts to beekeepers.

John Smart, GM sales for Airborne Honey.

“Our biggest retailers are telling us they want to do multi-year deals, so that we can do the same with our beekeepers. That way we can put through sustainable price increases in our buying and what we transfer through to our retailers,” Annabell explains.

As the supply and demand scale seemingly tips in a new direction, Airborne Honey’s general manager for sales, John Smart, indicates that as honey packers they have their own balancing game to play.

“The skill for us as a buyer is to assimilate beekeeper's expectations with the market and adjust our offers in response. Not where we have been, but where we think the market is this year. Where is the buying activity? What are the real prices?”  Smart says.

Seeking a Sweet Equilibrium

Determining that balancing point and those prices should be the goal of any beekeeper who wishes to support a sustainable long-term industry, several are saying.

“Beekeepers have taken a bit of a hiding on price for a while now, but they need to work with the packers because the beekeepers will mess it up if they keep saying ‘we won’t sell our honey for that’,” Malcolm warns from Natural New Zealand Honey in Canterbury.

“There has to be a wake-up call to the marketers and packers, but I say, don’t hold it over them. It needs to be a two-step thing, this season and next. Renegotiate contracts, explain that costs are through the roof and they need to up their price, but don’t hold it over them.”

Tweeddale believes it is important beekeepers hold out for more appropriate pricing and encourages them to do so, but he is also a realist about how far it can go.

“The packers who have struck these big deals to supply the big supermarket chains are going to have to go back to them and say ‘hey this is the only price we can get from our suppliers and we are going to have to adjust the price’. At the same time, we can’t be ridiculous, because they could decide to buy honey from somewhere else. There has to be a balance, and to keep the producer in business,” Tweeddale says.

Logan Bowyer, owner Mānuka Orchard.

At Mānuka Orchard, while Bowyer is motivated to see beekeepers reach not just break-even but the 30 percent business profit, as a honey seller he has been threatened with the other side of the coin too.

“I have a buyer overseas who has said her buyers are not ready for a price increase. I have told her they better get ready or they won’t have any honey. Her response has been, well they might not buy any honey if the price goes that high. She makes money out of all sorts of products and if there is no money in mānuka honey, she simply moves to something else,” Bowyer explains.

A Calculated Decision

After close to a decade of demise of beekeeping businesses off the back of sustained depressed prices though, who could blame beekeepers for taking every cent they can get?

Malcolm is one of them and hopes he and others can take a profit, while balancing that with the bigger picture.

“The world wants our honey,” he happily says, adding, “but we need to make sure the figures add up”.