Inflation here in the states is wreaking havoc on the American families right now. Twenty dollars for 8.8 ounces of Manuka or twelve dollars for a pound of local wild flower honey is a no brainer.
NZer here.. Manuka is great & ive definately seen the price go down which is great for the consumer, but obviously bad for the producers.. Buyt it's a typical boom & bust scenario.. It happened in NZ with Savignon Blanc wine, when every farmer in Marlborough, & every retiree that moved to Marlbourough to cash in on the Sav goldrush, all converted land to Sav vineyards. Enter a massive bumper crop in 2008, coinciding with the time for everyone to get on the bandwagon in the preceding 5 years, coinciding with the GFC & the resulting fall in demand for luxury products.. And the collapse of the NZ Sav industry was so great that people struggled to pay people to even harvest, & new vineyards, or even just nearby land suitable for vineyards, collapsed in price after years of inflated value. With stories such that you could buy a working & producing vineyard of a Hectare for a million NZD, barely more than twice the price of an average house in Auckland.. The Result being that there was so much collapse in investment & so much debt & fire sales that Pernon Riccard alone was able to consolodate 90% of Marlboroughs wine industry.. There are many who suspect this was deliberate.. Pay people & media to pump the market, get a speculative frenzy going on, make money from it, with the knowledge that you can buy it all once the bubble you helped create innevitably pops. Just as the major banks pump up the property bubbles knowing they can later consolidate both smaller investors & exposed banks once the bubble pops.. The typical cycle of boom & bust isnt just always "human nature" but its often engineered by the biggest players in the industry, or the investment holding comapnies or venture capitalists that invest in the biggest players of said industry.. As it is in Tech, as it was in litterally any "covid stock" , as it is in housing etc.. Right now the same thing is happening in the biking industry, where there was a covid bubble which increased speculative demand, & an expectation that people would continue to seek the increasing performance of bikes & pay their increasing prices. Plus the delay on manufacturing & shipment, which resulted in masive oversupply of inventory just as inflation is killing consumer spending. With some huge players such as Chain Reaction Cycles/Wiggle collapsing with a $700 Million loss, after it's chief holding co/investment conglomerate pulled finance. This same exact scenario happened to one of Australia's biggest vertical construction Cos, Probuild, which had a $50 Billion pipline of work, such as multiple 200m plus towers throughout Australia. But was running at a massive loss, running effectively a ponzi where every new project was paying for the previous one. A model that broke down competely with the building product inflation. So its South African parent Co pulled the pin.. Much of this bubble, of everything, was from industry player mania & greed, but much of it will also be from opportunistic venture capitalists pumping the markets knowing they will be able to buy it up on the other side.. So the NZ Manuka bubble collapse isnt unique among bubbles by any means. But like all major bubbles, as much as they boom & bust to human greed in a natural cycle, i guarantee you there will be players who engineered it from the start, knowing they will be able to consolodate the industry at fire sale prices afterwards. Because this seems to be a feature in every other bubble..
Very interesting video Gruff, thanks for that, my best wishes go to the honest producers out in NZ, hope they can find more local markets. In our own backyard, I think there is more scope for think global, buy local approach as there are so many quality producers here. Hope you bees have survived the cold, ta for the videos.
Hi from central Otago southern New Zealand 👋😃 yeah it's ironic, people used to get annoyed with manuka honey in their supers 😂 much like a lot of beekeepers in my part central Otago get annoyed with thyme honey in their supers 😂 we don't have manuka, like a few regions of New Zealand especially in the south island but we have some fantastic honeys from both native and introduced plants. Not many people are all that fussed for the taste of thyme honey which is a little problem when it's your main honey crop 😂 and I personally couldn't care less about it's popularity because money isn't why I'm beekeeping. There's been a bit of a flash in the pan with manuka, especially up north, but there's only a certain amount of nectar available in a crop and it doesn't matter how many hives you put out, what's there is there and some people with dollar signs in their eyes have become disillusioned, abandoned or sold hives off. Those of us who do this because we love it will ride out the storm. Interesting to see reaction from other countries, great video 👍 I wish I'd seen it a year ago 😂👋
Excellent report being that NZ is not a big on consuming honey makes me think of how much honey is imported. Great news maybe . Will price come down to other local honeys ?
We've been waiting for many years for the Manuka honey bubble to burst but it's held in for a long time. Remember we don't just produce Manuka honey. Some of us have survived by selling clover at $5 a kg and pollination work. Some of the people who thought they would get rich quick have had their dreams crushed but a lot are better off out of bee keeping. Second hand gear is only worth something if it has bees in them. We are only small time run 600 hives. It's your big three players that are running out of money as they have to feed a office full of shinny bums. Ps we already sell lots of our native honeys in the UK. Clover goes to the USA.
You guys over there are excellent bee farmers. I think an established outfit like yours that doesn’t rely on the Mānuka will be fine. Like you mentioned, low costs, already established and more importantly a wealth of experience and a diverse income source. 👍🏻
Started a while back when bee keepers in nz didn’t do anything about the corruption of honey leading to fake honey being sold and information that their honey could do or heal everyone. Honey has always been a great money maker for some especially for crooks building the demand for and educating your base is key. Simple know your keeper
Thanks Gwenyn, it will be interesting to know your opinion on the impact of honey production in the EU due to the war in the Ukraine. We are helping Ukrainian/British family to move their parents to the UK and it was interesting to talk to them as our friend'sfather is a commercial beekeeper in Ukraine and had to abandon all colonies due to the constant shelling. I looked online and was surprised to know that Ukraine was in top 5 in Europe as a biggest honey producer.
I was surprised to see that too. I had no idea how much food Ukraine produced. They are one of the world leaders. One person has already commented saying a lot of Ukrainian honey has been purchased by EU countries this year. I think the west of the country has been beekeeping as normal? Either that or there was a backlog of honey in the system.
Currently 500k and will drop more before spring people are walking away without treating for varroa,some are selling up live hives cheap and others are sitting on honey and sheds full of deadouts
I supposed this was bound to happen sooner or later. I mean if people were willing to pay £37.99 for a 250g jar of say authenticated Welsh honey (price of Manuka MGO340 at Holland & Barrett), or roughly £152 per kg, then every man and his dog would be keeping bees in Wales by tomorrow. For comparison I sell my honey in 340g jars for £6.00, or roughly £18 per kg, so the difference is absolutely staggering. The number of Manuka beekeepers in New Zealand, and Australia, will eventually stabilize on a level where supply and demand is in harmony, but in the mean time there are loads of people who will have lost their livelihood, and possibly a lifetime investment too, so very sad for those people of course. If there is any lesson to be learned I suppose that could be that if something seems to be good to be true, it usually is. Add to that the a huge part of the world is suffering from severe financial difficulties following the pandemic topped off by the war in Ukraine, and for many countries now the rise in cost of living too, so any extravagant habits are likely to be the first to be axed as private budgets need urgent slimming down. I don't think that our locally produced honey in e.g. UK will be considered an extravagant and unnecessary part of most people's budget though, at £18 per kg vs. £152, but we might still see a dip in demand for pure wildflower honey as you can still get supermarket honey for less than half the price. Not the same quality product of course and I expect that a lot of people will know that and still opt for the 'handmade' pure wildflower honey. Let's hope so.
Basically different flowers produce different honeys. Colour and taste varies and also how medicinal it is. Mānuka was classed as the most medicinal of all the honey. The tea tree flower which Mānuka is part of is medicinal in itself.
Does the unsold honey lose some of its nutrients, benefits, etc. while sitting for potentially a year or 2 before it’s exported. Could it go bad altogether?
As long as the moisture content of the honey is good when it was packed. It will last forever. They found honey in the pyramids in Egypt and it was still safe to eat after all those years! Water is the main thing that will make honey go bad.
Im in Canada and a deep super with 10 unfrawn foundation is almost $70.00 I wish we had a collapse so i could buy the afore mentioned for $18.00 like we did in the 80s .. The bees dont cost much more than the 80s but the equipment is ridiculous . We in saskatchewan Canada have a 40 hive yard every 3 miles around here
Isn't there alot of fake manuka honey sold globally . I once read that there's more manuka honey sold in London annually that is produced in NZ.. maybe that was Australian manuka pre legalisation?? With our rise in status of our own Heather honey becoming popular then I can't see this manuka problem affecting us in Ireland and great Britain, especially when people are becoming more educated on the benefits of consuming local honey..
It was a Chinese company that was selling fake manuka honey they got caught and fined a lot of money it was on the news here in NZ. NZ Manuka has special agents that goes around the supermarkets and randomly check for fake manuka honey
My feeling is it will happen in this country pretty soon as well. My own experience here in Shropshire is I replaced one retiring bee farmer and a large hobby keeper, but just recently there has been three other entrants into the industry, with at least two of them making enquiries onto land I have agreements to access. With rumours of large beefarmers moving north from the midlands will soon make some areas quickly overpopulated. I have had experience of other beekeepers offering payments for land in North Wales which is certainly not viable.
Not exactly there is a lot to consider producing Manuka honey , there is a lot of serious costs associated with the production of this honey. It may be a expensive commodity product but it also cost 3-4x more to produce than standard.
Greek buyers are normally the biggest buyers here. This year they have not showed up and the 2 biggest bulgarian companys are also not buying from us but from ukraine. Most goes across europe especially germany. They're paying less than 2.50 sterling a kilo as there are beekeepers offering to sell at this price but there still not intersted.
For me first extraction is from rapeseed. The market for that here has always been terrible. Just about give it away to cover costs. Main honey crop for me is coriander mixed with a few others. Past 7 years ive sold it to greece. It leaves greece as greek honey lol.
Tasmania has a higher quality of Manuka honey better than New Zealand and doesn't have the contamination of weedaside plus has leatherwood and almost sell out of both
manuka honey is good but I think it can be better like it can't be all manuka like I tasted a batch that tasted crazy good and a next batch that was trash
@@gwenyngruffydd true like I get all diff types of honey now manuka got nothing on stuff like sourwood honey or tupelo cactus honey so many different types that do the same thing shit even buckwheat has anti whatever properties and I'm sure they feed the bees in new Zealand and sell us trash not from flowers or trees it's kinda sad but hey china sells fake food so I guess where blessed idk lol
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Inflation here in the states is wreaking havoc on the American families right now. Twenty dollars for 8.8 ounces of Manuka or twelve dollars for a pound of local wild flower honey is a no brainer.
FYI Griff manuka honey is reduced in Harrods from £1200 to £900. Sold as 100% manuka with a certificate from only 200 jars produced and hand packaged.
NZer here.. Manuka is great & ive definately seen the price go down which is great for the consumer, but obviously bad for the producers.. Buyt it's a typical boom & bust scenario.. It happened in NZ with Savignon Blanc wine, when every farmer in Marlborough, & every retiree that moved to Marlbourough to cash in on the Sav goldrush, all converted land to Sav vineyards. Enter a massive bumper crop in 2008, coinciding with the time for everyone to get on the bandwagon in the preceding 5 years, coinciding with the GFC & the resulting fall in demand for luxury products.. And the collapse of the NZ Sav industry was so great that people struggled to pay people to even harvest, & new vineyards, or even just nearby land suitable for vineyards, collapsed in price after years of inflated value. With stories such that you could buy a working & producing vineyard of a Hectare for a million NZD, barely more than twice the price of an average house in Auckland..
The Result being that there was so much collapse in investment & so much debt & fire sales that Pernon Riccard alone was able to consolodate 90% of Marlboroughs wine industry.. There are many who suspect this was deliberate.. Pay people & media to pump the market, get a speculative frenzy going on, make money from it, with the knowledge that you can buy it all once the bubble you helped create innevitably pops. Just as the major banks pump up the property bubbles knowing they can later consolidate both smaller investors & exposed banks once the bubble pops..
The typical cycle of boom & bust isnt just always "human nature" but its often engineered by the biggest players in the industry, or the investment holding comapnies or venture capitalists that invest in the biggest players of said industry.. As it is in Tech, as it was in litterally any "covid stock" , as it is in housing etc.. Right now the same thing is happening in the biking industry, where there was a covid bubble which increased speculative demand, & an expectation that people would continue to seek the increasing performance of bikes & pay their increasing prices. Plus the delay on manufacturing & shipment, which resulted in masive oversupply of inventory just as inflation is killing consumer spending. With some huge players such as Chain Reaction Cycles/Wiggle collapsing with a $700 Million loss, after it's chief holding co/investment conglomerate pulled finance. This same exact scenario happened to one of Australia's biggest vertical construction Cos, Probuild, which had a $50 Billion pipline of work, such as multiple 200m plus towers throughout Australia. But was running at a massive loss, running effectively a ponzi where every new project was paying for the previous one. A model that broke down competely with the building product inflation. So its South African parent Co pulled the pin.. Much of this bubble, of everything, was from industry player mania & greed, but much of it will also be from opportunistic venture capitalists pumping the markets knowing they will be able to buy it up on the other side..
So the NZ Manuka bubble collapse isnt unique among bubbles by any means. But like all major bubbles, as much as they boom & bust to human greed in a natural cycle, i guarantee you there will be players who engineered it from the start, knowing they will be able to consolodate the industry at fire sale prices afterwards. Because this seems to be a feature in every other bubble..
Very interesting points you made. It’s definitely a cycle that repeats itself across many different industries.
Ohh thank you mate, thanks for sharing all those info with us, great to know what is going on. Many Thanks.
No problem, glad you found them useful
Very interesting video Gruff, thanks for that, my best wishes go to the honest producers out in NZ, hope they can find more local markets. In our own backyard, I think there is more scope for think global, buy local approach as there are so many quality producers here. Hope you bees have survived the cold, ta for the videos.
Thank you 😊
Hi from central Otago southern New Zealand 👋😃 yeah it's ironic, people used to get annoyed with manuka honey in their supers 😂 much like a lot of beekeepers in my part central Otago get annoyed with thyme honey in their supers 😂 we don't have manuka, like a few regions of New Zealand especially in the south island but we have some fantastic honeys from both native and introduced plants. Not many people are all that fussed for the taste of thyme honey which is a little problem when it's your main honey crop 😂 and I personally couldn't care less about it's popularity because money isn't why I'm beekeeping. There's been a bit of a flash in the pan with manuka, especially up north, but there's only a certain amount of nectar available in a crop and it doesn't matter how many hives you put out, what's there is there and some people with dollar signs in their eyes have become disillusioned, abandoned or sold hives off. Those of us who do this because we love it will ride out the storm. Interesting to see reaction from other countries, great video 👍 I wish I'd seen it a year ago 😂👋
Excellent report being that NZ is not a big on consuming honey makes me think of how much honey is imported. Great news maybe . Will price come down to other local honeys ?
We've been waiting for many years for the Manuka honey bubble to burst but it's held in for a long time. Remember we don't just produce Manuka honey. Some of us have survived by selling clover at $5 a kg and pollination work. Some of the people who thought they would get rich quick have had their dreams crushed but a lot are better off out of bee keeping. Second hand gear is only worth something if it has bees in them. We are only small time run 600 hives. It's your big three players that are running out of money as they have to feed a office full of shinny bums. Ps we already sell lots of our native honeys in the UK. Clover goes to the USA.
Ps we used to wash the Manuka out of our frames as no one would buy it I prefer kanuka to Manuka
You guys over there are excellent bee farmers. I think an established outfit like yours that doesn’t rely on the Mānuka will be fine.
Like you mentioned, low costs, already established and more importantly a wealth of experience and a diverse income source. 👍🏻
Never heard of Kanuka!? Is it similar to Mānuka?
@@gwenyngruffydd same family of bush flavour of the honey is not as harsh
Sounds like a great honey!
Started a while back when bee keepers in nz didn’t do anything about the corruption of honey leading to fake honey being sold and information that their honey could do or heal everyone. Honey has always been a great money maker for some especially for crooks building the demand for and educating your base is key. Simple know your keeper
I agree, the “fake honey” (like any market where there are large profits) definitely tarnishes some of Mānuka’s reputation.
Removing cures and inventing viruses
Thanks Gwenyn, it will be interesting to know your opinion on the impact of honey production in the EU due to the war in the Ukraine. We are helping Ukrainian/British family to move their parents to the UK and it was interesting to talk to them as our friend'sfather is a commercial beekeeper in Ukraine and had to abandon all colonies due to the constant shelling. I looked online and was surprised to know that Ukraine was in top 5 in Europe as a biggest honey producer.
I was surprised to see that too. I had no idea how much food Ukraine produced. They are one of the world leaders.
One person has already commented saying a lot of Ukrainian honey has been purchased by EU countries this year. I think the west of the country has been beekeeping as normal?
Either that or there was a backlog of honey in the system.
Happy new year Gwenyn and all the best for the coming year. Thanks for the videos.
Thank you Stephen 😊👍🏻 happy new year to you too
I believe it's less than 700k hives currently and dropping rapidly
How is it dropping? Are people leaving the industry or just reducing numbers? Or a bit of both?
Currently 500k and will drop more before spring people are walking away without treating for varroa,some are selling up live hives cheap and others are sitting on honey and sheds full of deadouts
I supposed this was bound to happen sooner or later. I mean if people were willing to pay £37.99 for a 250g jar of say authenticated Welsh honey (price of Manuka MGO340 at Holland & Barrett), or roughly £152 per kg, then every man and his dog would be keeping bees in Wales by tomorrow. For comparison I sell my honey in 340g jars for £6.00, or roughly £18 per kg, so the difference is absolutely staggering. The number of Manuka beekeepers in New Zealand, and Australia, will eventually stabilize on a level where supply and demand is in harmony, but in the mean time there are loads of people who will have lost their livelihood, and possibly a lifetime investment too, so very sad for those people of course. If there is any lesson to be learned I suppose that could be that if something seems to be good to be true, it usually is. Add to that the a huge part of the world is suffering from severe financial difficulties following the pandemic topped off by the war in Ukraine, and for many countries now the rise in cost of living too, so any extravagant habits are likely to be the first to be axed as private budgets need urgent slimming down. I don't think that our locally produced honey in e.g. UK will be considered an extravagant and unnecessary part of most people's budget though, at £18 per kg vs. £152, but we might still see a dip in demand for pure wildflower honey as you can still get supermarket honey for less than half the price. Not the same quality product of course and I expect that a lot of people will know that and still opt for the 'handmade' pure wildflower honey. Let's hope so.
Great comment 👏🏻
I never understood the real difference, can you explain it to me?
The difference between Mānuka honey and ordinary honey?
@@gwenyngruffydd yes, and any others
Basically different flowers produce different honeys. Colour and taste varies and also how medicinal it is.
Mānuka was classed as the most medicinal of all the honey. The tea tree flower which Mānuka is part of is medicinal in itself.
Does the unsold honey lose some of its nutrients, benefits, etc. while sitting for potentially a year or 2 before it’s exported. Could it go bad altogether?
As long as the moisture content of the honey is good when it was packed. It will last forever.
They found honey in the pyramids in Egypt and it was still safe to eat after all those years!
Water is the main thing that will make honey go bad.
Im in Canada and a deep super with 10 unfrawn foundation is almost $70.00
I wish we had a collapse so i could buy the afore mentioned for $18.00 like we did in the 80s ..
The bees dont cost much more than the 80s but the equipment is ridiculous .
We in saskatchewan Canada have a 40 hive yard every 3 miles around here
That’s a lot of bees!!
In this area our average was 200 lbs this year .
Canola and clovers
What’s an average of an average year?
Usually between 140 to 200 ish
Isn't there alot of fake manuka honey sold globally . I once read that there's more manuka honey sold in London annually that is produced in NZ.. maybe that was Australian manuka pre legalisation?? With our rise in status of our own Heather honey becoming popular then I can't see this manuka problem affecting us in Ireland and great Britain, especially when people are becoming more educated on the benefits of consuming local honey..
No doubt that’s had an effect on it.
I think the heather trade is very safe.
It was a Chinese company that was selling fake manuka honey they got caught and fined a lot of money it was on the news here in NZ. NZ Manuka has special agents that goes around the supermarkets and randomly check for fake manuka honey
My feeling is it will happen in this country pretty soon as well. My own experience here in Shropshire is I replaced one retiring bee farmer and a large hobby keeper, but just recently there has been three other entrants into the industry, with at least two of them making enquiries onto land I have agreements to access. With rumours of large beefarmers moving north from the midlands will soon make some areas quickly overpopulated. I have had experience of other beekeepers offering payments for land in North Wales which is certainly not viable.
Hope it doesn’t happen here!
I think that they priced themselves out of a market. In the US it was selling for $25 a quarter pound, when local is selling for 10 a pound.
Not exactly there is a lot to consider producing Manuka honey , there is a lot of serious costs associated with the production of this honey. It may be a expensive commodity product but it also cost 3-4x more to produce than standard.
@@thomashurford60 I am sure it is but something has to be very special to bring 10 times the cost especially right now with inflation so bad.
Hi I am VINOD and I am commercial indian beekeeper. What about furniture beekeeping in NZ ?
Hi Vinod,
What do you mean by furniture beekeeping?
Hiiii vinod sir
I'm still paying $40 for a tiny jar of Manuka In Canada
Won’t be for long!!
In UK it’s the same, still expensive
Hi, wht do u think about India as a Honey Market for Manuka honey
Unfortunately I have no experience in India. Are there many beekeepers there?
The situation here in Bulgaria is not good. This year there is no market for our honey as were been flooded with Ukraine honey.
Really!? How cheap was that coming in per kilo? Where does Ukrainian honey normally go to?
Greek buyers are normally the biggest buyers here. This year they have not showed up and the 2 biggest bulgarian companys are also not buying from us but from ukraine. Most goes across europe especially germany. They're paying less than 2.50 sterling a kilo as there are beekeepers offering to sell at this price but there still not intersted.
Waw that price is unbelievable. What did you used to sell it out as?
For me first extraction is from rapeseed. The market for that here has always been terrible. Just about give it away to cover costs. Main honey crop for me is coriander mixed with a few others. Past 7 years ive sold it to greece. It leaves greece as greek honey lol.
That doesn’t surprise me! Lol
Tasmania has a higher quality of Manuka honey better than New Zealand and doesn't have the contamination of weedaside plus has leatherwood and almost sell out of both
I’d live to try those honey!
manuka honey is good but I think it can be better like it can't be all manuka like I tasted a batch that tasted crazy good and a next batch that was trash
Maybe they need to upgrade the classification of it…
@@gwenyngruffydd true like I get all diff types of honey now manuka got nothing on stuff like sourwood honey or tupelo cactus honey so many different types that do the same thing shit even buckwheat has anti whatever properties and I'm sure they feed the bees in new Zealand and sell us trash not from flowers or trees it's kinda sad but hey china sells fake food so I guess where blessed idk lol