Exploring international opportunities for manuka honey through collaboration

The purpose of the trip was to understand Asian consumer demands, product format requirements, and discuss future opportunities to work in collaboration with each other to secure greater economic returns for Māori in manuka honey.

The delegation was called the Mīere Coalition (honey is ‘mīere’ in Māori )  with representatives having varied levels of involvement within the industry – from keeping bees, having lands with manuka, selling honey, to those with capital to invest.

The group has been evaluating how Māori can be more involved and extract greater proportionate value at different stages of the value chain (i.e. production, manufacturing, distribution and retailing).

Shar Amner (Ngāti Rangi), Te Tumu Paeroa Commercial Manuka Manager, sees big opportunities.

“At the moment there is limited collaboration across the sector which sees a disproportionate amount of the economic return being taken at the retail/market end of the value chain without the landowners fully benefiting.”

“Te Tumu Paeroa can have a pivotal role in driving the development to explore opportunities with like-minded groups such as those represented here on the Mīere coalition. As a large portion of manuka sourced for honey is obtained from Māori land we are keen to work with partners in the Mīere Coalition to unlock the potential – which is in line with Te Tumu Paeroa’s vision of mobilising Māori land and assets to create this generation’s legacy. Ultimately it involves looking beyond the current model which sees landowners being paid a small portion of the wholesale price of the product.”

The coalition visited honey importers/distributors and retailers with a view to understanding the current market opportunity for manuka honey in Hong Kong, Taiwan and Asia in general. In Asia, honey is much more than a condiment or sweetener. It’s a medicine, a tonic and a health product. With such strong demand for the product, underpinned by NZ’s reputation as a safe high quality producer of food, the opportunities are vast. There is a growing middle class in China and wider Asia, and they are demanding higher quality food sources and are willing to pay premium prices for products such as NZ meat, seafood, dairy product and also manuka honey. One example of the opportunities is in Taiwan in the ANZTEC trade agreement between NZ and Taiwan which has an exclusive provision committed to Indigenous co-operation between Māori and Taiwanese.

The trip was an uplifting experience.

“It’s quite inspiring to feel the passion of people in the industry and see it in their faces as they talk about their businesses, about working on the land, benefits and opportunities that are being provided and most importantly their dreams and aspirations for the future – not just theirs but for the industry, for Māori, and as a consequence all of NZ” says Shar.