Saturday, March 30, 2024

Late change for honey standard

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The manuka honey industry has welcomed the Government’s last-minute revision of honey standards that, left unchanged, would have sliced millions off the value of the country’s premium honey type.
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The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has made a significant change to the level of a chemical marker that defined manuka honey from multi-floral honey only days before the standards are to be formally enforced on honey producers.

February 5 marks the official launch of the new standards.

The MPI standards were released just before Christmas to an industry outcry at their failure to adequately define manuka honey and the impact they were likely to have on multi-floral honey’s ability to be defined as manuka. 

Some processors had experienced issues around the standards causing honey they knew was of a high unique manuka factor (UMF) standard to fail the test while some of lower UMF standard passed. 

Tests by beekeepers also found adding kanuka honey to blends would get a non manuka honey over the standards’ parameters to be classed as manuka.

Apiculture New Zealand chief executive Karin Kos said the change involved lowering the level of a chemical marker 2-methoxyacephenone (2’-MAP) after testing of 7000 samples found two-thirds of the samples of manuka honey would have been downgraded, resulting in significant loss of value for producers.

The change has come as honey producers threatened court action against MPI, such was the industry’s dissatisfaction with the consultation process and resulting lack of changes recommended by the industry that MPI had adopted.

In a statement MPI’s deputy-director general Bryan Wilson acknowledged its initial level of 2-map required had been too conservative and would exclude legitimate multi-floral manuka honey.

“We hope the industry will see this as a signal of MPI’s ongoing commitment to a collaborative science programme focused on continuous improvement to the science that supports the definition of manuka honey.”

Kos said the new standard was a stake in the ground, giving processors certainty for the coming season.

“And out of all this we also have a commitment to work collaboratively with Government on the science programme going forward.”

MPI had originally insisted on doing an independent review of manuka honey standards but that took three years to develop. Kos welcomed a greater level of collaboration between the government and private sectors in future.

“We certainly do not want this to happen again.”

UMF Honey Association spokesman John Rawcliffe said while a “stick has been put in the ground” it is important to install a “change-control programme” to formalise any future changes to standards as the science of honey understanding evolves.

“Hopefully, this will be developed through any collaborative process from here on in.”

He hoped the industry could get on with other issues like protecting the term manuka from overseas use, including the latest bid by Australian producers to use the term.

“From here on our job is about consumer assurance, quality control and protection of the manuka honey brand.”

In Parliament this week National MP David Bennett asked Food Safety Minister Damien O’Connor why the definition of manuka honey had been changed.

“The change is a result of new information from industry that showed the definition for identifying multi-floral manuka honey was initially set too conservatively and would exclude legitimate multi-floral honey from meeting the definition. The definition for mono-floral manuka honey remains unchanged,” he said.

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