Manuka Honey Quality Questioned - NZ News Report

As just reported in New Zealand's main newspaper - The New Zealand Herald - a university PhD student has found that fewer than half of the 26 manuka honeys she tested were 'true to label'.

Although this is a new 'news story' in terms of the testing and results found by Lincoln university, it is not new 'news' in terms of the actual issues over the quality and truthfulness of labelling of honey.

Some of it is related to lack of consensus over definitions (eg what constitutes a mono-floral honey), and plenty of it is down to dubious or straight out unscrupulous practices.

Importantly it should be noted that some of the issues highlighted in this story do not only affect manuka honey, and that globally honey (i.e all honeys) has been placed in the top 3 of foods that have food fraud problems.

A couple of important corrections should be made to the NZ Herald article as written (journalistic errors do not help matters): The newspaper articles states that "manuka honey's high level of antioxidants and hydrogen peroxide - which aid its antimicrobial or bug-killing activity - ... make it more expensive than other products". Actually hydrogen peroxide activity exists in all honeys and is not what makes manuka well sought after. Rather it is a unique non-peroxide activity that only some manuka honey (not all) contains that provides additional stable antibacterial powers, and is what much of the supporting research is based on.

Also at the end of the article we believe that the journalist has got her prices mixed up, and the higher figure should relate to this year, being up from last year, due to the increased worldwide demand and the much lower harvest this year from poor weather.

Those two points noted, here is the link to the Herald article you can read for yourself:
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=10841750

Next, it should be pointed out that pollen counts, and how 'pure' a mono-floral honey is, is a separate issue from the antibacterial potency of the honey which is what most people are interested in manuka honey for. The pollen count aspect applies to any type of honey, and it relevant around the world. The problem is that there is a shortage of supply of good quality manuka honey, and many beekeepers are able to make significantly more money from mixed honey (eg may contain some manuka source, but equally has lots from other plants flowering at the same time, and is essentially a blended product at best, and often merely a general bush honey) by labelling it as 'manuka' due to whatever small percentage of manuka it may contain.

It comes down to simple human nature - when (according to this research) more than half of products are labelled incorrectly, that is a significant portion of beekeepers who are making good money from doing what they currently are - there is only a disincentive (lower income) for them to reach a consensus on a definition and agreed pollen count ratio for what can be labelled as manuka. This is an area that really requires some government / authorities action in determining the rules.

Manuka honey has become renowned for its unique antibacterial and healing properties. In reality it is only some manuka honey that actually contains these extra benefits, and it is based on the existence of the extra non-peroxide activity in some batches. This is something separate and different to the pollen count, and is tested and measured differently. So you could have two samples of honey with different pollen count measures, eg one that is 90% manuka pollen and another that is 80%, yet that in itself does not determine their antibacterial or antimicrobial potency.

The accepted international standard firstly discounts that hydrogen peroxide activity (contained in all types of honey), and isolates the non-peroxide activity, which is then measured and compared to phenol    as a comparison standard.

Under the UMF® quality standard, only the measure of non-peroxide activity is used to provide the rated strength (as this corresponds to some relevant research). Now an issue is that this is a voluntary standard, so that companies are not required to abide by it. And again there is some incentive for some not too. As the common hydrogen peroxide activity can also be tested for and measured, what some companies do is obtain a certified laboratory test for 'total activity', and include the hydrogen peroxide level in order to show a higher rating number. They can use terms such as 'Active' or 'Bio-Active' on the labelling with this, as there are no controls over use of these terms. Companies have to obtain a license and meet a wider set of quality standards in order to use the UMF® quality mark.

Thus (and using a known, proven example) you can have a jar labelled as 'Active 18+' where the rating is only derived from hydrogen peroxide and contains no detectable amount of non-peroxide activity. This is NOT equivalent to a jar labelled UMF® 18+ which is based on non-peroxide activity only. The other aspect is that peroxide activity can naturally dissipate, and in the example being referred to here, when the jar of 'Active 18+' was taken from a shop shelf and tested, it actually had no detectable level of any activity at all.

To show the relative existence of the various potencies of manuka honey (i.e how much of each strength is harvested), have a look at these combined test results of manuka for 2012 here.

Despite the negative picture that this NZ Herald news story presents, it can also be seen in a positive light in helping make consumers a bit more wary of what is being presented to them, and hopefully it can also help stir the relevant authorities into taking some action and creating and enforcing some appropriate standards. The main point of that sentence being 'action', and not just making comments.

Supply shortage in 2012

Both retailers and consumers are finding some issues over getting supply of good quality manuka honey, especially now in the later part of 2012.

Back at the beginning of the year, the New Zealand summer was rather a wet one. And bees don't really like going out flying and foraging for nectar when it is raining. Now the manuka plant only flowers for approximately 6 weeks, and when this coincided with more than normal rain last season, it has had quite an impact on the harvest of manuka honey this year. Different areas and different beekeepers have been affected at varying levels, but several have reported the quantity of their honey production to be down 40% compared to previous year.

The lower harvest, especially of good, credible quality manuka honey, has led to some supply issues, and together with the still growing worldwide interest has led to some quite noticeable price increases.

This also leads to increase risks of inferior honey, that does not actually contain the renowned extra antibacterial property, being misleadingly sold to meet the demand from the market.

It is probably important more than ever for both retailers and consumers to do some further research themselves on which are the most reputable brands. And they may need to accept some periods of 'out of stock' for affected products.

Hopefully the coming summer in New Zealand will be more normal weather wise, and the honey harvest can get back to previous levels. It should be remembered though that it is a natural product, and like vegetables and other crops will always be subject to the variances of mother nature.