Tai Tokerau Honey shows strong values, sweet success

Tai Tokerau Honey is proudly based in the Far North, say owners Lonnie and Rob Murray.

Putting whanau, the environment and the community above purely making money has been a recipe for success for a Kaitaia-based manuka honey company.

Tai Tokerau Honey has won a host of business awards, including the coveted Taitokerau Maori Business of the Year award and Northland Regional Council's Excellence in Environmental Awareness and Management award.

The husband-and-wife owned business was also 2018 Maori Television Matariki Awards finalists. In April, the company also won three Maori Business Women Awards, including the supreme award, Te Kaipakihi tino Taumata.

The awards are recognition for years of hard work and focusing on the Far North community, said co-owner Rob Murray.

"It's not all about just us; it's about the businesses that we carry with us across the line," he said. "If everyone thought like that, this would be a better town."

The company now employs 20 full-time staff in Kaitaia and Moerewa, as well as 20 part-time staff in honey-producing season.

"It's hard to get qualified people in Kaitaia and finding people who want to work [is hard]. We're very short on experienced people."

Tai Tokerau Honey is about to start three apprenticeships, teaching everything from beekeeping to business and mechanics.

Being a Maori-owned business is a good selling point when exporting honey overseas, he said.

"I think being Maori and being in business, the world wants to deal with the indigenous people, as we deal with the indigenous people in other countries," he said.

It exports to Japan, Taiwan and Hong Kong and the company has build a good relationship with the Japanese, co-owner Lonnie Murray said.

Over the last five years, the company has started using helicopters to transport hives, rather than vehicles, to have less impact on the whenua (land).

Tai Tokerau Honey is part of the Warawara Komiti Kaitiaki and takes part in research led by Landcare and Otago University. It looks into the whakapapa of the manuka tree, vitally important to this Maori business.

Mr Murray said the name manuka — a Maori name — should only be applied to honey that comes from New Zealand. However, that is under threat with companies in Australia already using the 'manuka' label.

The Ministry for Primary Industries recently introduced tough new criteria — four chemical analyses and a DNA marker — to prove honey is the healing manuka honey.

Perversely, the same restrictions do not apply to overseas manufacturers.

Mrs Murray said there were good intentions introducing the standards.

"It's a reassurance for our overseas customers that the honey they buy from New Zealand meets these standards and is genuine."