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All of New Zealand has moved into COVID Alert Level 4 (Lockdown), as of 11:59pm Tuesday, August 19.As a primary industry, Avatar Honey NZ Ltd is classified as an essential service.
We will remain open throughout the COVID Alert Level 4 Lockdown.We will continue to accept and process all customer honey orders at Avatarmanukahoney.com, to be dispatched by courier to addresses within New Zealand and to international destinations. We do not offer a pick-up service from our warehouse.

It’s been another busy season at Avatar Honey and thankfully the honey gods have smiled upon us this season. The hives all produced a bountiful crop of high quality, high activity, monofloral manuka honey. The manuka blossom intensity was tremendous and we were fortunate to have fine and hot settled weather during the nectar flow.

Hello Honey Lovers, it’s been a while since we’ve given you an update on what we’ve been doing at Avatar, as we’ve been head down, sting up working tirelessly to get the most out of the honey season. Now as it draws to a close, we can relax a bit…and give you some insights into what happened during the season.

 

Concerned about the negative impact on New Zealand’s reputation of media reports regarding fake manuka honey being sold, the New Zealand government’s Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) has been developing a fingerprint for New Zealand manuka honey – a scientific definition based on its unique constituents.


MPI has developed five proposed tests to authenticate manuka honey.
MPI’s science programme found that a combination of 5 attributes (4 chemicals, 1 DNA marker from manuka pollen) are required to separate manuka honey from other honey types. These tests will be used to categorize the honey as monofloral manuka honey and multifloral manuka honey or not manuka honey at all.

What we say:
What MPI is proposing is a good foundation testing regime to build a rating system on, but it falls short of providing such. It only gives the honey repacker two options to use when labeling the jars: - These are multifloral manuka and monofloral manuka. MPI’s proposed testing regime does not segment or categorize the honey enough to allow the consumer, (you), an informed purchasing decision as to the accurate constituent nectars and properties of the honey.
Additionally, we believe laboratory testing of New Zealand honey samples against the new definition have shown MPI to have set the pass rates for monofloral categorization relatively low, meaning it might actually be more multifloral than monofloral.

And what does monofloral mean anyway?
Mono meaning  “alone,” “single,” “one”,
Floral in the botany context means flower…
So the honey comes from only one flower type? Really?
So when hives are placed around native NZ manuka forests, that do contain other floral plant species, the bees have only foraged on the manuka flowers when their foraging range is easily 2kms?   Nonsense!

Indeed the accepted term for monofloral honey, is honey derived from predominantly one floral type. Combine that with MPI’s only other manuka nomenclature option of multifloral, means your definitely buying honey derived from some manuka flowers but also other floral nectars.

This does not necessarily allow you need to make an informed purchasing decision.
So here’s what Avatar Honey will be doing…
When MPI’s new definition is implemented all our manuka honey will undergo independent laboratory testing to ensure it meets MPI’s new definition for manuka honey. 
To grade our honey further, we will continue using the MQS rating system, to let you the consumer know about the honey’s full constituent make up and unique manuka properties in a way that is easy for you to understand.

Just continue to look for the MQS symbol. Its that simple!

More reading from MPI on chemistry details of manuka.. http://www.mpi.govt.nz/growing-and-producing/bees-and-other-insects/manuka-honey/

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Honey is one of the most fraudulent and adultered foods globally and because of the high price of manuka honey, it is frequently targeted and mislabeled by unscrupulous companies.  

We believe only genuine manuka honey comes from New Zealand .

Our customers have told us that what is important to them in there decision to buy Manuka Honey is:  
to be able to easily distinguish the lower and higher quality grades.
to continue to be able to purchase the honey based on its antibacterial potency
to have faith that what they are buying is true to label and not a diluted blend of low quality inferior foreign honey.

Manuka MQS certified
Avatar Premium MQS Manuka Honey is graded for purity and antibacterial efficacy according to the Manuka Quality Standard (MQS). Our honey’s MQS rating is verified by independent laboratory testing and rated according to the honey’s active ingredient, Methylglyoxal, (an antiseptic compound derived from NZ manuka flower nectar) and its manuka flower pollen concentration.
The MQS number is a close approximation to the honeys Non-Peroxide Activity (NPA). 

All Avatar MQS manuka honey is absolutely delicious and its manuka purity and antibacterial potency increases with its MQS rating.  A higher rating means a higher manuka purity and stronger flavour.

When choosing a manuka honey, to guarantee authenticity we recommend you:

Select a 100% New Zealand Honey Company. 
A vertically integrated NZ company involved in the actual beekeeping process is the best choice. 

Select a brand that is repacked in NZ: 
Why?
NZ prohibits the importation of foreign honey into NZ. If it’s packed in NZ it’s very unlikely to be blended with cheap foreign honey.
NZ has very strict food safety and consumer protection laws. There are severe penalties for mislabeling a food product.
Select a brand that can demonstrate provenance
i.e. traceability right back to the beehive.
Select a brand that has a multi-parameter manuka quality grading system:
Always select a manuka honey that is graded on both Methylglyoxal (MG or MGO) AND manuka pollen concentration.
Select a brand that has Independent laboratory testing
i.e. published accredited laboratory reports for each honey batch.
Select a brand that has Independent Audits:
Do they have a quality assurance program that’s audited by a independent agency to verify what they are selling is genuine and true to label?

Wow, what happened? We ponder this question as we sit here after what was a terrible season, looking at our pathetic harvest. All the beekeepers up and down the country tell a tale of the same woes. A perfect-storm situation for a low yield crop -shocking weather right from mid spring to late summer, rain, wind, and cold.  Queen bees didn’t get mated in spring, manuka flowering was weaker than normal, bees sheltered in their hives during the nectar flow and what nectar flow there was, got washed from the manuka blossom by the rain. Bugger!
Thankfully, we have stocks of manuka, maturing from previous seasons and from our experience a great year usually follows a bad one. It allows us time to reflect and prepare for 2018 season. Bring it on!
On a very positive note, Avatar’s new labels look incredible! It really captures the essence of the brand and brings a structured hierarchy to our honey portfolio. Thanks to the team at Gregory Studio for all the hard work in pulling this off. 
MPI keeps pushing out the release date of the NZ government’s new manuka honey definition/standard, so we have had to push on and print the labels without knowing what changes we will need to make following MPI’s release of the new definition. But the show must go on…
Finally, we are working on some new exciting honey products to add to our portfolio…watch this space!

We specialize in the production of New Zealand’s world renowned manuka honey.
Manuka honey is unique to New Zealand and comes from the nectar of the manuka (Leptospermum scoparium) bush. Research into using manuka Honey in medical and nutraceutical applications is continuing thanks to its antibacterial and other bioactive properties.

Avatar® Manuka is a very complex food, containing thousands of totally natural compounds. We call it natures Super-Food and as Mother Nature’s appointed honey guardians, we handle it very carefully during the harvesting, extraction, maturing and repacking processes.

Our honey is treated with the utmost respect from the moment it is harvested from the hives. It is carefully handled through each stage of the extraction and packing process.
We do not filter to remove pollen. We do not aggressively heat the honey which destroys its natural enzymes.

Aged to perfection…
Manuka honey’s antibacterial efficacy is increased by maturing the honey over time. Some companies try and accelerate the maturing process of Manuka by storing the honey under elevated temperatures to rapidly increase the honey’s potency. Not us. When we mature our manuka honey, we only do it under ambient conditions to ensure our matured Manuka is as fresh as the day it was harvested while maintaining its maximum nutritional value.  
Some of our Manuka has been aged for over 3 years.

We never forget the magical little creatures that gave us this gift…the bees! 
We only farm our bees in an ethically responsible and sustainable manner.
When the manuka honey is harvested, we ensure sufficient honey is left to make sure the bees remain healthy during winter supplemented by late summer wild flower and other native nectar flows that follow the manuka.

At Avatar Honey, we go to great lengths to get into very dense manuka forests so we can greatly improve our chances of harvesting the highest quality honey. We understand many people would have no idea what a manuka honey forest is or maybe even what manuka honey is. So today we hope to explain a little bit about what goes on.
First, it's good to understand a little bit about bees :). Bees fly within about a 2km foraging radius from their hives. From this we know its best to get our hives in the middle of a 2km radius of manuka blossom. Believe me, this is much easier said than done. But with the help of 4x4 trucks, quad bikes and helicopters, we are able to scout out the best spots in the mountains then prepare our hive location plan. Hives must be looked after loved and cared for all year around to ensure they are overflowing with bees come the nectar flow. Come late Spring we are keeping an eye on the manuka flower. How the young flower buds are looking on the manuka trees. When it looks like it is just about to flower, its action time and we all spend weeks of exhausting days placing hives.
Now moving thousands of hives quickly definitely takes some pre-planning as this is our most important part of the year, it must be done smooth and quickly and is all weather dependent (so its all go or its all off) and can be decided as late as the crack of dawn depending on the wind in the valleys for the helicopters to take out the hives to the best manuka locations inside these forests and hillsides of thousands of acres.
All to bring you a pure manuka honey,… ideally a truly monofloral manuka honey, meaning the bees gather the nectar only from the manuka flower. This is the goal for our expert bee keepers.
Avatar Manuka Honey is rich and strong but delicious. It’s completely different to every other honey on the market today. The reason we go to so much effort to make a monofloral manuka honey is not for its rich flavor, it’s because science is discovering more about the thousands of natural chemicals found in the manuka honey and its success, used in medical, nutraceutical and cosmetic applications.
Science can prove its superior antimicrobial properties are superior to other honeys backed by the thousands of anecdotal positive reviews that keep pouring in, shared by real people worldwide who are using manuka honey for so many different reasons.
If you have never tried it before, your will find it very different to any other honey you have ever tired. Many times we have heard the words “Oh so this is what real honey tastes like” and seen that Avatar honey smile.
Avatar Manuka Honey is one of the most remote manuka honeys in New Zealand. 
If your after a true taste of New Zealand, try our honey.

 

Check out our online store here to find out which Manuka Honey you would like to try.

 

 

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We have just brought in the hives for 2015 to their wintering sites and wow what a year. We have had an amazing season! All our bees are healthy and we really couldn't have asked for anything more. We’ve got a lot of honey this year, it’s just been magical. For the few of you who have had the chance to get your hands on our 2013/14 honey you will be pleased to know we are now only about a year away from releasing our retail stocks of Avatar manuka to the world. It’s been a fantastic ten plus year journey beekeeping and we are very excited to now be moving from wholesale into the retail market. With how the manuka honey market has just kept growing, our decision to hold back and come to market with the best manuka honey, is really looking like its going to be well worth the effort.
We are still seeing manuka honey prices worldwide skyrocketing and demand increasing every year, helped by celebrity endorsements and the never ending public praise for manuka honey. It looks like its going to be an exciting few years.
Just want to take a moment to thank the team at Avatar. They are all working hard behind the scene to get everything ready for our transition from the local New Zealand wholesale market into the  worldwide retail markets. Who would have guessed 10 years ago, we would here now with our stunning new website and heading overseas for food expos and introducing Avatar Manuka Honey to the world?

These are all manuka rating systems and will correlate to the honey’s antibacterial properties.
Lets explore them in more detail…

Methylglyoxal (MG or MGO ) concentration (expressed in mg/kg) is a common rating system used by many manuka honey companies. Methylglyoxal is a stable natural antiseptic compound only found in manuka honey in high concentrations. Therefore, it is directly linked to a honey’s antibacterial potency and also a good measure of its manuka floral origins.
Recently, a manuka honey’s Methylgloxal concentration has been the most important factor in determining the quality and value of the honey.

BUT, not all manuka honey will have high concentrations of MGO and MGO can be added artificially by unscrupulous companies.

What about labels that rate their honey on the percentage of Manuka Pollen?
Pollen: Flower nectar contains a small amount of pollen. Pollen is also present on the anthers of all plants from which bees collect nectar and this is transferred onto the bee’s body during its foraging.
So bee’s foraging manuka flowers will collect manuka pollen, which carries over into the honey.
By observing pollen under a microscope, it is possible to identify its plant family, genus and species. Similarly by observing pollen present in the honey, it is possible to identify the floral sources of the nectar used to make the honey. This is why microscopy pollen analysis is an internationally accepted method of determining a honeys floral type.

However, pollen alone should not be used as the sole indicator of floral origin for manuka honey. The manuka plant’s closely related cousin, Kanuka, has pollen grains that are almost identical to manuka pollen.  In many parts of NZ, both manuka and kanuka plants co-exist in the same area and flower at similar times. The resulting honey is commonly a mixture of both or could even be wholly kanuka dominant.  The common name for both honey types to date has been Manuka. 
The resulting mix is still delicious and has good health giving properties, however Kanuka honey, won’t have a high MGO concentration.

The MQS (Manuka Quality Standard) system uses Methylglyoxal concentration AND also uses pollen concentration as its two key parameters to grade manuka honey to create a robust grading system specifically for manuka honey.

That’s why we use the multi-faceted MQS rating system as part of our 6 point quality assurance program to guarantee the provenance of our manuka honey.

 

MQS	MGO	Pollen %	Leptosperin	UMF	MGO	Pollen %	Leptosperin
5	100	50	N/A	5	83	N/A	100
8	180	60	N/A	8	182	N/A	100
10	250	70	N/A	10	263	N/A	100
12	350	70	N/A	12	356	N/A	100
15	500	75	N/A	15	514	N/A	100
18	700	80	N/A	18	696	N/A	100
20	800	85	N/A	20	829	N/A	100
25	>1000	90	N/A	25	1200	N/A	100

 

 

MQS source http://www.mqs.co.nz/
UMF Source: http://www.umf.org.nz/grading-system-explained/


Rating systems to avoid:
Avoid manuka honey suppliers that use one dimensional rating systems i.e. that only use one parameter to grade their honey.
Additionally, we recommend you avoid buying honey labeled as manuka based on a Total Activity or Peroxided activity rating as this is a property any honey will have and therefore not a good indicator of its ‘manuka’ properties.

All honey has antibacterial properties thanks in part to naturally occurring Hydrogen Peroxide (H2O2) present in the honey.
Manuka honey has H2O2, but has additional antibacterial properties that exist even when the H2O2 is neutralized.
Prior to 2013, manuka honey was commonly rated according to its antibacterial properties. This was determined by laboratory testing on a well diffusion assay of Staphylococcus Aureus (a bacteria) after the H2O2 was neutralized in the honey sample.
An industry-adopted scale was used to measure its antimicrobial efficacy from <5 (low efficacy) to 20 (high efficacy), with the higher rating indicating higher antibacterial potency. This was called the Non-peroxided activity (NPA) of the honey.
The area of exclusion of bacterial growth due to the honeys antimicrobial potency was measured and compared to a Phenol control (an antiseptic). The results were then referenced back to the equivalent concentration of Phenol. E.g. a manuka honey with an NPA of 15 had the equivalent antimicrobial efficacy of a 15% concentrated solution of the antiseptic Phenol. And so a grading system for manuka honey from 5+ - 25+ was developed.


In 2007 Professor  Henle at Dresden university in Germany, demonstrated the non-peroxided activity of manuka honey is directly proportional to the concentration of a compound Methylglyoxal (MG or MGO), present in the honey. Methylglyoxal has strong antiseptic properties. They concluded the majority of the non-peroxided activity was due to the honeys Methylglyoxal concentration.
Methylglyoxal or MGO is used as a grading system by many Manuka honey companies.

Moveover, as MGO is a unique compound found only in Manuka honey, it is also an indicator of the manuka floral origins of the honey. i.e. the honey’s manuka purity.  

To get the highest concentrations of MGO, Avatar beekeepers strategically place their hives among the purest manuka forests at just the right times and then they might mature the honey for years to naturally grow the MGO to its optimum concentration.

Methylglyoxal is naturally synthesized from another compound Dihyhydroxyacetone (DHA) found in fresh manuka nectar according to the temperature and time the honey is ‘matured’ in storage.
DHA is a compound unique to Manuka flower nectar. It’s concentration in new honey gives us a good indication of the honeys potential future methylglyoxal concentration. However, the concentration of DHA found in the nectar of manuka flowers has wide variability according to: the manuka species, the region, the season and environmental factors. The DHA (and therefore also MGO) concentration can also be artificially raised by unscrupulous companies by the addition of synthetic DHA to the honey.

That’s why you should always purchase  manuka honey from a supplier who uses a rating system that also uses other parameters (e.g. pollen) in addition to MGO concentration to guarantee you are buying a genuine manuka honey product.