Friday, March 29, 2024

Aussies want a taste of manuka’s millions

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Australians are getting a taste for manuka honey and looking for ways to stick their fingers into the jar. Businesses there are trying to get in on the act and scientists are searching for local equivalents.
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Now Kiwi manuka honey company Comvita has signed an agreement to form a jointly owned business with Australian firm Capilano Honey to form an apiary business on the continent to produce manuka honey ford medical and natural health products.

Meanwhile, Perth businessman Paul Callander had imported a million seeds of Leptospermum varieties from around the North Island.

Callander and colleagues were growing the trees because in a nursery at Manjimup in southwest West Australia because they believed the best hope for success in the manuka market was to recreate the products made from the original New Zealand trees.

However, his firm was working closely with universities to build a database of all Australian and NZ Leptospermum varieties, the ABC reported.

Scientists in Australia were calling for beekeepers who produced honey from Leptospermum trees across the nation to submit samples of their nectar for testing, optimistic they would find a variety with similar properties to NZ’s manuka honey, which was made from two native varieties of Leptosermum, weeklytimesnow.com.au reported.

The new Comvita venture with Capilano, Australia’s main honey distributor, intended to operate a number of Leptospermum honey-producing apiary businesses in Australia, Comvita said in a statement to the NZX.

It would be owned 50:50 by the two firms.

Within their respective countries, Comvita and Capilano each market honey and manage apiary operations that produce Leptospermum honey.

Capilano wanted to expand its specialised Leptospermum apiary operation in Australia and secure greater honey supply.

Comvita already had sales and marketing capacity in Australia and the joint venture would secure greater volumes of Leptospermum honey to be processed in Australia, to meet a growing global sales demand.

“Initial findings have confirmed Australian honey is just as potent as the manuka from NZ.”

Ben Hooper

Beekeeper

Comvita and Capilano had already been involved in joint research to investigate the medicinal properties of Australian Leptospermum honey.

 

Both companies recognise the need to expand their operations and grow the supply base for premium quality honey, especially in Australia, to satisfy growing demand, they said.

Both businesses believed they would achieve significant long term benefits by working together.

Comvita shares, up 122% in a year, last traded at $9.20 on the NZX, making it the third-best performer on the S&P/NZX All Capital Index. Capilano's stock last traded at A$18.65 on the ASX.

Callandar said if he could work out how to grow the Kiwi trees successfully there was great potential for the establishment of a West Australia manuka honey industry because rabbits and kangaroos would not eat them.

Beekeeper Brendan Fewster told the ABC if the plants grew and flowered successfully, the manuka industry could be a goldmine for local honey producers.

Australia had 83 species of Leptospermum, leading researchers to believe it was possible to create a honey similar to manuka.

A testing programme was being funded by the Rural Industries Research and Development Corporation and Horticulture Innovation Australia to find it.

“Initial findings from the north coast and northern rivers regions of New South Wales have confirmed Australian honey is just as potent as the manuka from NZ, which is an incredible boon for the industry in areas where the trees grow,” spokesman and beekeeper Ben Hooper said.

Manuka honey was worth up to $100 a kilogram.

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