Manuka honey row escalates

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A Te Awamutu honey company at odds with other New Zealand apiarists promoting anti-bacterial manuka honey claims rating tests for medical effectiveness gives varying results for the same batches of honey.

Manuka Health NZ Ltd, said today that the wider manuka honey industry had failed to disclose that repeated tests on the same sample can vary by up to 50 per cent in terms of its anti-bacterial effectiveness.

It said New Zealand Laboratory Services Ltd had stated two years ago there was a problem with the "repeatability" of results for honeys rated at UMF 20 with high anti-bacterial activity levels.

Manuka Health has been in dispute with the Active Manuka Honey Association (AMHA) - which watchdogs the unique manuka factor (UMF) rating system and its associated brand - and has funded German researchers who say measuring a specific chemical compound is a more reliable rating method.

The German researchers announced two years ago that a natural compound, methylglyoxal, is responsible for manuka honey's unique antibacterial properties.

This chemical can be measured with an accuracy of 2-3 per cent.

Industry observers are concerned the argument may cause confusion among customers of UMF honey products - including medical items such as wound dressings - which are worth more than $100 million.

Some researchers are understood to be experimenting to see if methylglyoxal can be added to "ordinary" honey to make it as effective as some medical honeys in combating bacteria.

Apiarists and exporters have spent millions of dollars building their branding around the UMF rating system, which was created when NZ researchers were unable to pin down exactly how "active" honey was inhibiting infection and promoting wound healing.

The UMF measurements compare manuka honey antibacterial properties with different concentrations of a standard laboratory disinfectant.

Manuka Health has moved to set up tests to certify honey-based health products and in January, launched the first honey products certified to contain specified levels of methylglyoxal, which can be up to 1000-fold higher in active manuka honey than in non-manuka products.

The company said effective antibacterial activity required a minimum content of 100mg/kg of methylglyoxal.

Manuka Health chairman Ray Thomson said several AMHA member companies regarded the discovery of methyglyoxal as a threat to the UMF brand.

But AMHA brand manager John Rawcliffe has disputed methyglyoxal content can be correlated to the levels of antibacterial activity associated with the UMF trademark.

"The correlation made is not accurate," he said in a statement.

Manuka Health had also made claims overseas that Indian cancer researchers had found that methylglyoxal in large doses has the potential to combat cancers in animals.

Perceptions that cancer research had been linked to manuka honey to promote sales of honey could damage the UMF brand, he said.

Mr Rawcliffe also alleged product testing by AMHA showed that Manuka Health had packed and sold UMF honey that was not true to label.

- NZPA