Lower sales, competition ends honey exporter’s sweet run
After three years of record performance, mānuka honey exporter and retailer Comvita has reported an annual net loss of $77 million.
A new digital series, backed by industry stakeholders, highlighting what makes the honey so special has been launched.
Manuka Mastery is designed to help wholesalers, retailers, and nutritional health professionals better understand the honey to enable them to support the category as it gains more shelf space and grows its share in the $750 billion global natural health food category.
Made up of eight videos, the digital training series takes in the 1000-year history of the manuka tree in Aotearoa, the discovery of manuka honey health attributes, and the modern scientific discoveries which have substantiated its bioactive properties.
A key focus of Manuka Mastery is to highlight manuka honey’s antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and immune-boosting properties which underpin the numerous health benefits being investigated by researchers.
Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association (UMFHA) is an independent New Zealand-based society that has set and certified the standards for bioactive mānuka honey for over 25 years. Representing more than 80% of New Zealand’s mānuka honey exporters, UMFHA ensures the authenticity, quality, and bioactive content of every batch.
UMFHA chief executive Tony Wright emphasised the importance of providing training material for customers worldwide to equip their teams with tools to help consumers understand the high value, high quality, health package they are purchasing when buying UMF certified mānuka honey from New Zealand.
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“The Manuka Mastery course helps tell New Zealand’s manuka honey story,” says Wright.
“The video and Q&A modules are brief, informative and easy to understand, and have been developed to support retailers cut through any customer confusion in the honey aisle.”
Users move through each module by watching a short video and answering questions afterwards. After successfully completing each module and the short final test, participants become certified New Zealand Manuka Honey Specialists. The new digital series launches in the United States first and will be available to all international markets shortly thereafter.
Manuka Mastery was a cross-industry collaboration between UMF Honey Association, UMFHA licensed export partners, Manuka Charitable Trust, independent laboratories, beekeepers, the University of Waikato and industry retail partners.
