Manuka honey sits on health food shelves like royalty — small jars, enormous price tags, and promises of near-miraculous healing powers. It has become the darling of the wellness world, commanding anywhere from £20 to over £100 for a single jar. Skincare brands have rushed to feature it on their labels. Influencers swear by it. But beneath the premium packaging, there is a less flattering story — one involving industrial-scale fraud, pesticide rejections, and a supply chain so murky that you genuinely cannot be sure what you are buying.
Here is what the industry does not want you to know about Manuka honey, and why there is a cleaner, more trustworthy alternative sitting much closer to home.
The Numbers Don’t Add Up: More Manuka Is Sold Than Exists
Let us start with simple arithmetic, because it is damning.
New Zealand produces roughly 1,700 to 2,000 tonnes of certified, export-grade Manuka honey each year. That is the real figure — the amount that comes from verified hives visiting Manuka flowers in New Zealand. Yet global sales of products labelled as Manuka honey have been estimated at several times that volume. One widely reported figure from industry investigators puts it at around 50,000 tonnes sold annually worldwide.
Someone, somewhere, is producing tens of thousands of tonnes of fake Manuka. “The fraud is industrial scale,” John Rawcliffe of New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries has stated publicly. “We’re not talking about a few dodgy operators. This is organised production of fake product.”
The maths simply do not work. A meaningful — arguably the majority — proportion of what is sold as Manuka honey globally cannot be genuine. This is not a conspiracy theory or a fringe concern. It has been raised by the New Zealand government itself, by the UMF (Unique Manuka Factor) Honey Association, and by food standards bodies in the UK and EU.
So when you pick up a jar from a high street health shop or online marketplace, the statistical likelihood is not in your favour.
What Is It Actually Cut With?
The premium price of genuine Manuka honey — driven by its scarcity and the marketing machine behind it — creates an obvious and irresistible incentive for fraud. The gap between the cost of bulk blended honey and the price on a Manuka-labelled jar is enormous, and unscrupulous producers exploit it in several ways.
The most common form of adulteration is simple blending: genuine Manuka honey is diluted with cheaper honey — often regular clover or wildflower honey — and the resulting product is still labelled and sold as Manuka. More sophisticated operations have been found adding synthetic chemical compounds to mimic the markers that testing looks for.
In a landmark New Zealand court case, Auckland company Evergreen Life Ltd was fined over $372,000 after investigators discovered the firm had been adding synthetic methylglyoxal (MGO) and dihydroxyacetone (DHA) to low-grade and non-Manuka honey. These are the very compounds that give genuine Manuka honey its antibacterial properties. The company had been fraudulently inflating the perceived potency of its products for financial gain — the court found it had benefited by approximately $700,000 through the scheme. The fraud ran for 16 months before a whistleblower alerted authorities.
Globally, honey is now considered the third most adulterated food in the world, after milk and olive oil. Economically motivated honey adulteration has been estimated to have caused up to $1 billion in damage to American beekeepers alone between 2015 and 2019. In separate research, tests found that 82% of tested Manuka honey products failed standard quality requirements, 60% failed key chemical marker tests, and 80% contained no detectable Manuka plant DNA at all.
Read that last figure again. No Manuka DNA. In Manuka honey.
Japan Said No — And Japan Has Some of the Strictest Food Standards in the World
Japan is not a country known for lax food safety. Its standards are frequently more stringent than those of the EU or the US. So when Japanese authorities began rejecting New Zealand honey shipments and implementing mandatory border testing for all New Zealand honey imports, it was significant.
The issue centred on glyphosate — the active ingredient in the widely used herbicide Roundup. Japanese authorities detected glyphosate residues in multiple Manuka honey shipments, including one batch found to contain levels four times Japan’s permissible limit. Japan’s limit for glyphosate in honey (0.01 ppm) is considerably stricter than New Zealand’s own domestic standards — which raises an uncomfortable question about the product being sold in less stringently regulated markets.
Japan warned New Zealand’s Ministry for Primary Industries that it would stop all honey imports if the contamination continued, and implemented 100% border testing of incoming honey shipments. For a product that sells itself on being “clean, green” and pure from one of the world’s most pristine environments, glyphosate contamination is more than a regulatory inconvenience — it is a fundamental contradiction of the brand promise.
The UMF Rating System: A Good Idea That Can Still Be Gamed
Proponents of Manuka honey will point to the UMF (Unique Manuka Factor) rating system as the answer to fraud concerns. If you buy a jar with a high UMF certification, they argue, you can be confident in what you are getting.
There is truth in this — the UMF system, requiring independent testing and verified traceability, is a genuine attempt at quality assurance. But the system has its limits. Testing has found that 32% of Manuka honey products failed their own potency label claims even among products presenting UMF certification. Offshore packing — where bulk honey is imported and jarred outside New Zealand — has been found to violate UMF rules, yet products bearing the logo have still appeared in international markets.
The core problem is this: certification systems are only as robust as the enforcement behind them, and when the scale of fraud is industrial and global, enforcement cannot keep pace. Fraudsters do not apply for certification. They slap on the branding and move on before authorities catch up.
The Carbon Footprint Nobody Talks About
Set aside the fraud and contamination questions for a moment and consider something simpler: Manuka honey travels roughly 11,500 miles from New Zealand to reach shelves in the UK. For a product positioning itself as a natural, wellness-forward choice, the environmental cost of that journey rarely features in the conversation.
Meanwhile, local honey — produced by bees foraging within a few miles of where you live — requires no such journey. The food miles are negligible. The supply chain is visible. And the beekeeper is, in many cases, someone you can actually speak to.
Why Local Honey Deserves More Credit
The wellness industry has done a disservice to local honey by positioning Manuka as the premium option and everything else as inferior. The reality is considerably more nuanced.
Raw, local honey contains a range of beneficial compounds — naturally occurring hydrogen peroxide, flavonoids, phenolic acids, enzymes, and antimicrobial properties — that are present in varying concentrations depending on the local flora. The nutritional profile of local honey is shaped by the ecosystem around it, making it genuinely unique to its source in a way that mass-produced Manuka honey cannot be.
Some research has explored the idea that local honey may support immune function by exposing the body to trace pollen from the surrounding environment. While the science on this remains mixed — most seasonal allergies are triggered by wind-dispersed pollen rather than flower pollen found in honey — what is clear is that raw local honey retains beneficial enzymes and antioxidants that pasteurised and heavily processed honeys lose.
There is also something to be said for provenance and trust. When you buy honey from a local beekeeper — someone you can visit, whose hives you can point to on a map — you know what you are getting. There is no possibility of it being cut with corn syrup somewhere between New Zealand and a warehouse in Rotterdam. There is no 11,500-mile supply chain with multiple opportunities for adulteration. You can ask questions and get straight answers.
That kind of transparency is, in the natural wellness world, genuinely rare.
What This Means for Skincare
The same logic that applies to Manuka honey as a food product applies equally to its use in skincare. The Manuka honey on a premium skincare label may well be the same product in question — potentially adulterated, certainly travelled, and possibly not containing the MGO levels the marketing implies.
For topical application, honey’s benefits — its humectant properties that draw moisture into the skin, its antimicrobial action, its ability to support the skin’s natural barrier — do not require a specific Manuka certification. Raw, high-quality honey with verified sourcing delivers these same properties. What matters is that the honey is genuine, minimally processed, and incorporated thoughtfully alongside other active, skin-supporting ingredients.
At Teestallow, our approach has always been to use ingredients we can vouch for — ingredients with transparent origins and a clear, evidence-based reason to be in our formulations. Our signature balm now includes real honey as part of its carefully considered blend, working alongside tallow and other natural actives to support the skin’s barrier, lock in moisture, and deliver genuine nourishment.
You can explore our full range of natural skincare products — including the updated balm featuring honey — at teestallow.com. Each product is made with the kind of ingredient transparency that Manuka honey’s global supply chain cannot honestly offer.
The Price Premium Is Rarely Justified
A final point worth making plainly: Manuka honey’s price is largely a marketing construction.
The core properties that make honey beneficial for health and skin — its antimicrobial and antioxidant compounds, its humectant qualities, its enzymatic activity — are present in many honey varieties. The specific MGO content that Manuka is marketed around is genuinely higher in authentic Manuka, but given that a substantial portion of what is sold as Manuka does not meet authentic standards, you are frequently paying a premium for something that may not deliver on its core promise.
Raw local honey, purchased from a trusted local producer or small-batch supplier, can offer many of the same benefits at a fraction of the cost — and with complete supply chain transparency. The same is true in skincare: a product formulated with verified, quality honey as part of a thoughtful, whole-ingredient approach will do more for your skin than one that simply features “Manuka honey” as a marketing headline on the label.
What to Look For Instead
If you want the benefits of honey — in food or in skincare — here is a more reliable guide than a UMF number on a jar:
Know your source. Local honey from a named beekeeper or small British producer is traceable in a way that imported Manuka honey simply cannot be. Ask where the hives are, what the bees forage on, and how the honey is processed.
Choose raw over processed. Pasteurisation and heavy filtering destroy many of the beneficial enzymes and antioxidants in honey. Raw honey — whether local or otherwise — retains more of its natural activity.
Look for minimal ingredient lists in skincare. If a skincare product uses honey as a genuine active ingredient, the formulation should reflect that — a short, considered list of complementary ingredients, not a long parade of synthetics with “Manuka honey” as a headline claim.
Support transparent brands. In an industry where “natural” is frequently a marketing term rather than a meaningful descriptor, brands that can tell you exactly what is in their products and why it is there are worth seeking out.
At Teestallow, we have built our range around exactly that principle. Our balm — now reformulated with honey as a key ingredient — is a product we can explain fully, from every ingredient to the reason it is there. It is designed for people who want skincare that does what it says, without the smoke and mirrors.
Discover the full Teestallow range at teestallow.com.
References and Further Reading
- NZ Bees — Protecting Our Liquid Gold: How New Zealand Fights Manuka Honey Fraud Worldwide — https://nzbees.nz/protecting-our-liquid-gold-how-new-zealand-fights-manuka-honey-fraud-worldwide/
- Happy Valley Honey — Is Your Manuka Honey Real? What the Research on Manuka Fraud Means for Buyers — https://happyvalley.co.nz/blogs/blog/manuka-education-manuka-honey-fraud-real
- New Zealand Government / Ministry for Primary Industries — Fines totalling $372,500 imposed in landmark mānuka honey fraud case — https://www.mpi.govt.nz/news-and-resources/media-releases/fines-totalling-372500-imposed-in-landmark-manuka-honey-fraud-case/
- RNZ News — Japan warns it will block NZ honey shipments if glyphosate limits breached — https://www.rnz.co.nz/news/country/434807/japan-warns-it-will-block-nz-honey-shipments-if-glyphosate-limits-breached
- Haute Living — Why Manuka Honey Needs the Champagne Treatment — https://hauteliving.com/2026/05/why-manuka-honey-needs-the-champagne-treatment/789753/
- Wonder Honey — Honey Fraud: What You Need to Know — https://wonderhoney.com/pages/honey-fraud
- NZ Herald — 14 tonnes of adulterated honey: Company and manager fined $370k for doctored mānuka products — https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/14-tonnes-of-adulterated-honey-company-and-manager-fined-370k-for-doctored-manuka-products/57EWCS4QNGS4RBTAVU3YKZSV5M/
- Tridge — Japan has banned the import of honey from New Zealand due to traces of glyphosate — https://www.tridge.com/news/japan-has-banned-the-import-of-honey-from-new-zeal
Posted in: Natural Ingredients, Skincare Education
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