Pure Honey = Quality Honey

Happiness in a jar. When it comes to real Mānuka honey, quality means purity, and vice-versa. And since quality is what we’re all about, we settle for nothing less than the highest standards possible, from start to finish. So why not try our organic raw honey for yourself today?

Best Mānuka Honey for Everyday Use

Mānuka honey UMF 5+, UMF 10+, or UMF 12+ are safe to include in your daily diet. This raw form of honey’s most significant health benefits are supporting a healthy immune system and treating minor ailments at home, due to its natural enzymes and antioxidant properties.

This delicious honey is perfect for use as a natural sweetener in food and drinks because it is sweeter than regular honey but has a lower GI value. Also, keep it in your medicine cabinet to help treat inflammation, a sore throat, and minor cuts and scrapes.

Best Mānuka Honey for Targeted Health

UMF 15+, UMF 18+, and UMF 20+ have greater antiviral properties, which can help improve respiratory and digestive systems. In addition, the medicinal properties of Mānuka honey make it the best honey for treating acne, infection, burns, Gingivitis, and even insomnia.

UMF 20+ is the most potent raw honey due to its highly active antibacterial properties, making it particularly effective in wound healing. In addition, this deeply colored, rich honey has a delicious flavor and, like all our organic raw honey, is a 100% gluten-free, non-GMO product.

Best Mānuka Honey for On-the-Go

Happy Mānuka’s On-the-go range UMF 5+ and UMF 10+ raw honey sticks are a great way to enjoy all the nutritional benefits and the delicious taste of monofloral honey in a convenient, pocket-sized packet.

How we Create the Best Raw Mānuka Honey

Discover what sets Happy Valley's Mānuka honey apart from other raw honey brands.

Land and Environment

Regular soil testing, careful site selection, and organic growing practices are just a few things we do to ensure the cleanest soil around our Mānuka trees.

Beekeeping and Hive Health

We maintain our own hives and use quality systems to track hive health. Not only that, we have total transparency of the bees' journey from hive to nectar.

The hives’ health is the most critical part of a sustainable company and creating and harvesting quality pure raw honey. So, our team of 30 local beekeepers at Melita look after 10,000 hives across the natural, native forests and fields spanning New Zealand year-round.

The beekeepers use technology and time aged traditions to monitor bee health. They track information at the hive and site level, so our raw honey is completely traceable back to the source. Our beekeepers collect and record information that includes:

- Maintaining hive components
- Tracking field activities
- Disease monitoring Inventory control
- Genetics: optimizing our bee colonies and breeding programs
- Protecting the hives and bees from adverse weather

The environment impacts the quality of raw honey, and our beekeepers work tirelessly to control and monitor it. But neither our beekeepers nor we can control some of these natural elements - only Mother Nature holds that power. To find out more, head to our beekeeping website.

Production

“If you want something done well, do it yourself.” We do, and we do! All the honey extraction, manufacturing, and processing is done in our own factories (which, by the way, have some pretty fancy accreditations). That's how we can guarantee each step of the process meets our high standards. 

Independent Testing & Grading

Happy Mānuka products are true to the label - and you can trust that's a fact because we're a member of the UMF® association. That means our raw honey is repeatedly tested to guarantee it meets UMF-rated purity and quality standards, and our family standard of pure happiness!

We conduct numerous tests from the hive to extraction, and we continually test our drums to monitor the honey’s quality. Our tests are conducted with independent laboratory tests and kept in our database. We use these to carefully plan and match our honey to our global markets and mix consistent quality batches. We also work closely with our independent labs to monitor best practices and the latest research and scientific testing.

Testing includes:

- UMF Testing

To receive a UMF® rating, Happy Mānuka tests for Mānuka markers across four different spectrums, including the recently discovered Leptosperin. Leptosperin is an abundant, stable, and scientifically researched marker unique to Mānuka honey in NZ. This differentiates UMF graded honey as a genuinely authentic, raw Mānuka honey.

- Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF)

Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is a break-down product of fructose (one of the main sugars in honey). It forms slowly during storage and very quickly in hot honey. The international food standards require that the hydroxymethylfurfural content of honey after processing and/or blending shall not be more than 40 mg/kg.

- Methylglyoxal (MGO)

MGO is the compound responsible for the unique properties of Mānuka honey and forms the basis of the UMF grading system.

 - Leptosperin

Leptosperin is also found in Mānuka nectar. Due to its unique abundance in Mānuka honey, it has been identified as the most discerning characteristic to distinguish Mānuka honey from other honey types.

 - DHA

DHA is in the nectar of Mānuka pollen. It converts into MGO once the bees gather the nectar from the Mānuka bush and turn it into honey.

Packing and Processing

We have a specialist honey packing facility in Auckland, where we have over 20 years of experience packing New Zealand honey. In addition, our factory has several accreditations that can assure you the products we are packing are of the highest quality and standard.

We use gentle production methods that enable us to classify our honey as raw unfiltered honey, as we only gently heat it through the production process to natural hive temperatures.

We take great care to ensure that we don't heat our honey above the natural temperatures of the hive, therefore elevating the HMF levels. Heavy processing destroys the beneficial compounds found in Mānuka honey, so we aim to protect and nurture the honey just as nature intended.

When we process the honey in our factory, we gently warm it so that it can be worked with and transferred to the vats. We then use a seed starter (or creamed honey) process where the honey is gently warmed and cooled while stirring to thicken and cream the batch.

Quality, Purity, and Provence Assurance

All of our honey is traceable back to the hive to assure you of the honey’s origin. We use Oaye software to show you the process we undergo to ensure our honey meets quality, purity, and provenance standards. And, we carry the UMF Quality Trademark to guarantee that our raw Mānuka honey is an NZ-made product.

What’s the Difference Between Filtered and Unfiltered Honey?

Filtered honey goes through a process where all fine particles, pollen grains, and other materials found in honey’s natural form are filtered out. This makes the honey smoother and helps to ensure that it stays in liquid form without the formation of honey crystals. This is what you’ll find in other commercial honey products and is what consumers usually prefer. However, the filtering process removes many beneficial compounds naturally found in honey.

Our raw and unfiltered honey comes straight from the hive, strained only to remove larger particles like honeycomb and bee parts. It’s thicker than filtered honey and usually needs to be scooped out with a spoon rather than poured. It contains all the bee pollen and particles naturally found in honey. Our raw, premium Manuka honey provides the most benefits because it includes the highest possible concentration of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and antioxidants.

What’s the Difference Between Raw Honey and Organic Honey?

While raw honey means unheated and unfiltered honey, organic raw honey means the honey and nectar sources are certified free of chemical substances and antibiotics. For bees to produce organic honey, they must be in an area clear of pesticides, including their hive, the flowers they pollinate, and the surrounding environment. This means no genetically modified crops (100% non-GMO) or synthetic growing processes. 

Certified organic, raw, and unfiltered honey such as Happy Mānuka honey offers the most outstanding nutritional value.

Happy Manuka - Genuine Manuka Honey, from our Hive to your Home

Are you ready to get some high-quality, organic raw honey into your day? Our 100% genuine and independently tested UMF Mānuka honey earns our raw honey brand the seal of approval by the UMF Association of NZ.

We ship across the USA, so shop our delicious honey online today and share it with your friends and family. For more information on any of our raw honey products, contact our friendly Happy Mānuka team.