Egmont Honey Buys Tweeddale's, Now NZ's Biggest Apiary
New Plymouth-based Manuka honey exporter Egmont Honey has completed its acquisition of Taihape beekeeping business Tweeddale's Honey, with settlement finalised on Friday, 18 September.
A new digital series, backed by industry stakeholders, highlighting what makes the honey so special has been launched.
Thousands of honey retailers and professionals worldwide are getting a taste of the remarkable properties of New Zealand mānuka honey.
A new digital series, backed by industry stakeholders, highlighting what makes the honey so special has been launched.
Manuka Mastery is designed to help wholesalers, retailers, and nutritional health professionals better understand the honey to enable them to support the category as it gains more shelf space and grows its share in the $750 billion global natural health food category.
Made up of eight videos, the digital training series takes in the 1000-year history of the manuka tree in Aotearoa, the discovery of manuka honey health attributes, and the modern scientific discoveries which have substantiated its bioactive properties.
A key focus of Manuka Mastery is to highlight manuka honey’s antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, antioxidant and immune-boosting properties which underpin the numerous health benefits being investigated by researchers.
Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association (UMFHA) is an independent New Zealand-based society that has set and certified the standards for bioactive mānuka honey for over 25 years. Representing more than 80% of New Zealand’s mānuka honey exporters, UMFHA ensures the authenticity, quality, and bioactive content of every batch.
UMFHA chief executive Tony Wright emphasised the importance of providing training material for customers worldwide to equip their teams with tools to help consumers understand the high value, high quality, health package they are purchasing when buying UMF certified mānuka honey from New Zealand.
“The Manuka Mastery course helps tell New Zealand’s manuka honey story,” says Wright.
“The video and Q&A modules are brief, informative and easy to understand, and have been developed to support retailers cut through any customer confusion in the honey aisle.”
Users move through each module by watching a short video and answering questions afterwards. After successfully completing each module and the short final test, participants become certified New Zealand Manuka Honey Specialists. The new digital series launches in the United States first and will be available to all international markets shortly thereafter.
Manuka Mastery was a cross-industry collaboration between UMF Honey Association, UMFHA licensed export partners, Manuka Charitable Trust, independent laboratories, beekeepers, the University of Waikato and industry retail partners.
LIC shareholders have elected a new North Island representative to the co-operative's Board, along with five representatives to its Shareholder Reference Group (SRG), following the company's Annual Meeting held in Invercargill.
Farmers across parts of Southland and South Otago are continuing to deal with difficult conditions after a prolonged run of wet weather, with pressure building around feed supply, stock management, pasture damage, farm infrastructure and everyday workloads.
Federated Farmers says it welcomes Labour's commitment to reviewing the Sharemilking Agreements Act, calling on other major parties to do the same.
For Canterbury dairy farmers Sian Meijer and Rick Wobben, wearable technology has become one of their most valuable on-farm tools - helping manage 1850 cows across an expansive, high-performing dairy operation while improving efficiency, mating outcomes and day-to-day decision making.
Fonterra has unveiled its annual results for the 2026 financial year, posting $27 billion in revenue and close to $20 billion returned to New Zealand farmer owners and unit holders.
The first major update to the Dairy Cattle Code of Welfare in more than a decade has been released, marking what DairyNZ describes as an important step in ensuring animal welfare standards continue to evolve alongside scientific evidence and on-farm realities.

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