Success tastes sweet for the team at Greytown’s Avatar Honey NZ, who have won gold at this year’s New Zealand Food Awards.
Several Wairarapa businesses were recognised as finalists in the competition, but Avatar was the only one to get gonged, winning the 2023 Beverage Award for its manuka honey elixir drink.
The winning tipple is a carbonated drink stacked with vitamins and a high-grade manuka honey, known for its natural properties that aid immunity.
Among other factors, the award criteria takes into account food and packaging quality, environmental and social sustainability, and innovation.
Company director Brendon Redfern said the team are still on cloud nine after winning at the award’s gala dinner last week.
“We were competing against some exceptionally high-quality beverages, so we are really humbled to have won the award,” Redfern said.
“It has always been a goal of the company to offer its customers the opportunity to consume our honey in new and innovative ways and to get this accolade is recognition that we are moving in the right direction.”
By incorporating honey into a packaged drink form, Redfern said the product opened up a new range of sales opportunities like restaurants and cafes.
The elixir’s impact is wider than merely boosting distribution, however.
Redfern said that Avatar’s business model of placing hives within regenerating native bush also aids native biodiversity and local profitability.
“There are often areas on farms that are unproductive, hard to access or farm, and prone to erosion. Commonly the farmer will allow the native bush to regenerate in these areas,” Redfern said.
“The combination of traditional farming and honey production works well on these farms.
“It’s great to think our products have been derived from these habitats and we are directly contributing to the preservation of New Zealand’s native ecosystems.”
Redfern said another goal with the product was to help lift demand for manuka honey and restore profitability back to beekeepers and manuka forest land owners.
Last year, Apiculture New Zealand chief executive Karen Kos estimated there was an oversupply of up to 30,000 tonnes of honey in storage nationwide, due to falling international demand.
Elaborating on this, Redfern told the Times-Age that this drop in demand was due to international stockpiling of the product during 2020 and 2021, eventually leading to lower exports.
Now, the international exchange rate is currently favourable, Redfern said, and it feels like the international export market is bouncing back – but that doesn’t mean they back in clover just yet.
“The cost of living crisis has been global and had a huge impact on premium products,” Redfern said.
“We’re still playing on the stage of a global honey market, and the price for NZ honey is very expensive compared to alternatives.”
As it is still early days, Redfern said Avatar Honey NZ is working on distributing the product to different outlets both in Wairarapa and nationally.
