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Liquid Gold Feeds Comvita's Success NZME News

Tuesday 9 August 2016, 2:43PM

By Beckie Wright

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NZX-listed Comvita has recently become a half-billion dollar company, thanks largely to the rise of Manuka honey. The Te Puke-based company, makes natural health and beauty products derived largely from Manuka honey, and Comvita's chief supply chain officer, Colin Baskin, has been doing research to produce superior Manuka plants for differing environments. "There is a strong commercial justification for growing Manuka for honey production on marginal land which is often providing no revenue stream for the landowner," he says. "In some areas it is outstripping revenue from existing farming practices."

Manuka, once the scourge of many a back country farm, is making a big comeback, and serious plans are afoot to establish plantations of Manuka, commonly referred to as ‘scrub’, to aid the production of medical-grade Manuka honey, and there is big money involved.

Comvita started its Manuka optimisation programme about 10 years ago, and in the early days, the company collected wild seeds and initiated a programme to get the best floral density to get more bees, flowers and nectar. Over the next five years, Comvita expects to plant 11,000ha of Manuka on its own properties and others. Comvita already has a 90ha block in conjunction with the Hawke's Bay Regional Council, which will yield its first honey crop this year.

Comvita senior research manager Jonathan Stephens said a range of different Manuka cultivars were being tested for growth rates, disease resistance, flowering ability and their dihydroxyacetone (DHA) level in nectar on each site around the country. DHA is the chemical that produced the unique Manuka factor (UMF) in the honey. UMF contained antioxidants and inflammatory enzymes, he said. "It is the UMF value in the honey that drives the value in the international market. We breed the Manuka to elevate the dihydroxyacetone in the nectar. The higher the dihydroxyacetone in the nectar, the more value to the honey at the end of the day."

The Ministry for Primary Industries has invested in the High Performance Manuka Plantations Primary Growth Partnership (PGP) programme, which aims to improve the yield and reliability of supply of medical-grade Manuka honey. The programme intends to lift the value of the New Zealand Manuka honey industry from an estimated $75 million in 2010 to $1.2 billion a year by 2028.

For further information on Comvita and their Manuka honey products, please visit the website at http://www.comvita.co.nz .

-  Written by Jamie Gray, Business Journalist

THIS STORY APPEARED ON NZHERALD.CO.NZ ON 9 JULY 2016: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=11671175

SOME COPY FROM MANUKA TRIAL HAS EYES ON THE MONEY ON STUFF.CO.NZ ON 3 MARCH 2015: http://www.stuff.co.nz/business/farming/cropping/66892095/manuka-trial-has-eye-on-the-money