Jim McMillan (Te Atiawa) and his team at The True Honey Co. have created the world's most potent manuka honey. Helicopters are used to drop the hives into their top-secret locations.
Jim McMillan (Te Atiawa) and his team at The True Honey Co. have created the world's most potent manuka honey. Helicopters are used to drop the hives into their top-secret locations.
What does it feel like to taste the most potent mānuka honey in the world?
Turns out you won’t have to travel halfway across the world to find out, with Tararua-Hawke’s Bay based The True Honey Co. beating its own records and achieving the un-bee-lievable feat.
The company’s Rare Harvest 2050 MGO product achieved a grade of 34 for its Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) when tested by the UMF Honey Association, the highest ever recorded for a product of this nature.
According to Jim McMillan (Te Atiawa), founder and CEO of The True Honey Co., a jar of his most precious mānuka honey (which retails at NZ$2500) is best consumed straight off a spoon.
“It’s similar to toffee - both sweet and savoury, with a slight mocha note. I absolutely love it.”
He also said the product’s health benefits were “unparalleled”.
“There’s also the experience of feeling its natural goodness running through your body. Our customers tell us they buy our Rare Harvest wanting to invest in the best of the best for optimal health and wellbeing.”
A jar of True Honey Co. Rare Harvest 2050 MGO product retails for NZ$2500.
News of the achievement came as no surprise to acting CEO of the UMF Honey Association, Campbell Naish, who said the organisation conducted up to 3000 batch tests each year, across more than 200 brands.
“We know that The True Honey Co. is committed to achieving the highest rating they possibly can, have a track record of producing high rating honey and have tailored their processes to do so,” he said.
“Like any high performing organisation, they are always looking to push the boundaries.”
Based in Dannevirke with a head office in Ahuriri, the company’s products have also made their way onto the shelves of some of the most prestigious shops in the world.
In 2021 it sold the world’s most expensive honey at the time for a record price of $4964/230g jar at Harrods in London.
The company said demand for the Rare Harvest 2050 MGO was very high.
Only 1000 glass jars were available, with half already sold to customers weeks before it launched.
Both Harrods and Selfridges in the UK took an order, as well as some affluent Middle Eastern families.
In Germany, the honey has been purchased by a premium food distributor, and back home, by businesses looking to gift something authentically representative of Aotearoa to visiting colleagues.
McMillan said he and his team partner with landowners who have large stands of pristine mānuka on their properties.
He said most of these locations were incredibly remote, so helicopters are used to drop the hives into their top-secret locations, where they stay for the duration of the mānuka flowering season before being lifted out.
“It’s a precision operation,” he said.
“Using helicopters means we can place our hives in the middle of remote dense stands of mānuka – places roads don’t reach – ensuring only the absolute purest mānuka nectar is sourced.”
McMillan said he was “really proud” of the team for their enthusiasm and commitment to producing the honey.
“To make mānuka honey of this grade takes an exceptional set of environmental circumstances along with the utmost care and attention to the hives and honey maturation process.”
