One: Harvest

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The Mānuka flower blooms for up to 4 to 6 weeks at different times of the year across New Zealand. Once flowering has finished, the honey is harvested quickly to ensure we get the highest UMF™ grade.
The season for our northern locations – Port Waikato and Coromandel, begins in late November and goes into December. Further south in the Central Plateau and Wairarapa regions, harvest starts in late January to goes through to the end of February.
Once the bees have done their job, the hives are collected and brought back to our extraction plant for the next step.

Fun fact:

On average, each hive collects 22kg of Mānuka honey!

Two: Extraction

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Extraction is the process of getting the honey off the hive frames before being placed in jars.
To start the process, we place our hives in our onsite temperature-controlled, warm room set to 30 degrees. Doing this helps the honey slide off the frames in the next stage.
The hives go through the de-boxer station for the frames to go through the Uncapper and Pricker. The Uncapper is for removing the thin beeswax covering the honey frames to expose the honey. The Pricker loosens the honey on the frames before placed in the Extractor.
The Extractor is a big spinner, where the honey is released and pumped through to be homogenised, then placed into drums for storage.
During this entire process, the room smells delicious for those with a sweet tooth!

Three: Storing

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Once the extraction process is complete and our honey has been placed into drums to mature, they are stored in our new, onsite temperature-controlled room that allows us to control the quality of our Manuka honey.

Four: Ready to be enjoyed

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We then send out our honey barrels to be jarred, ready for market and your enjoyment on toast, breakfast, smoothies – however you like your Manuka honey.
Check out some of our recipes here! Or go to our Instagram Food Inspo highlight reel.