"For a natural product, there are a lot of moving parts involved in getting it from the field to the shelf. If you do it right it can be high reward, but it’s also always high risk.”
Words Cameron Officer Photos Vinesh Kumaran
John Green’s assessment of the mānuka honey business is somewhat surprising if you don’t fully appreciate its complexities.
“It certainly isn’t for the fainthearted,” he cautions with a wry smile.
He’s referring into the fragility of a mānuka season, which is over in the blink of an eye. There’s no telling whether Mother Nature will be on your side during it either.
“The window of opportunity is really small; you only have around six weeks when the mānuka is flowering. But you also have to have ideal weather. If you have a lot of rain, then that shortens the season again and the bees won’t go out in bad weather.
“You’ve got to go into the manuka business with your eyes open. You have to anticipate that you’re probably only going to get one bumper season out of every three or four. Ironically for a natural product, there are a lot of moving parts involved in getting it from the forest to the shelf. If you do it right it can be high reward, but it’s also always high risk.”
It’s here where you start to understand why the end product can often cost what it does to purchase.
Marketed and sold under the premium Hidden Honey brand, John’s business is very much a family one, with his sons Hugh, James, and Daniel beekeeping and farming the block on the Whanganui/Taranaki district border where the mānuka honey is harvested. It’s seriously tough country, with many of the hives so remote they had to be helicoptered in.
Having the hives so far from human encroachment is the whole idea though. Hence ‘Hidden Honey’.
“As a family, we’ve always been involved in cattle and farming,” continues John. “The honey side of things started with a couple of hives and just grew from there. We had hives at Clevedon initially, but that wasn’t commercially viable, so we made the decision to fully invest.
“In Whanganui we have two million-plus mānuka trees – one million when we purchased the land and we have planted another million – which is a stable amount for production. The majority of the trees are six years old, and they tend to reach maturity between seven and eight years.”
What else is surprising is that the bees aren’t really into mānuka at all.
“It’s very bitter, so the bees don’t zero in on it over other flowers. The Whanganui block consists of around 3000 acres of mānuka trees with two to three hundred acres of scrub and grassland. By next season we will have 1200 hives.”
Despite the operation at the other end of the island, John and the Green family have been in the Clevedon area for generations. A couple of years ago they restored an old farmhouse on blocks of land they were farming and turned it into a café. Named The Farmhouse (of course) it has become something of a local institution.
Despite having opened to the public a month before the first 2020 Covid lockdown, today it is incredibly popular, with various members of the family involved in its operation, as well as the Pilates studio next door.
“I’m a firm believer in the importance of having family involved in business. It’s a great way to stay close, stay connected,” says John. “You’re working together for a common good. And we’re very lucky here having the Farmhouse too, because it’s a great way to catch up with family at the start of the day, have a coffee, plan what’s going on. And there certainly is a lot going on.”
The next move for Hidden Honey is to commence selling the product in overseas markets, most notably the Middle East and the United States. With such reverence placed upon mānuka honey, especially in the Middle East, it’s a process you have to get right first time.
“Honey is incredible – it never goes off; it never breaks down. They’ve found honeypots in the ancient tombs of Egyptian royalty and the honey inside is still in good condition.
“But in extracting the product, you have to treat it like its fragile. You have to respect the product and respect that reverence for the product. You can’t dip a toe in the water in this business; you have to immerse yourself,” John concludes.
“But if you surround yourself with good people that care about the success of the brand and the business – whether they are family or grow to become like family – then that’s as solid a foundation as you can hope for.”
