Work is apace to disestablish Apiculture New Zealand (ApiNZ) and considerably alter the Unique Mānuka Factor Honey Association (UMFHA) constitution to broaden their remit, in an effort to draw in beekeepers to what has been tentatively titled ‘The New Zealand Honey Association’. Leading figures in the two groups, ApiNZ chief executive Karin Kos, board chair Nathan Guy and UMFHA chief executive Tony Wright, explain why they believe the shake up of their respective industry groups is in the apiculture industry’s best interests.
With the target date of April 1 for launch of The New Zealand Honey Association, January and February are going to be busy in the offices of both ApiNZ and UMFHA. Both are currently assessing feedback from a consultation period with their members, following the November 27 release of a draft constitution for the new industry body and “a stronger collective voice”.
Wright says they plan to correspond with UMFHA members with a summary of that consultation and a more detailed constitution on the week of January 6. The hope is that constitution will be appealing to their existing 82 members and a SGM can be called to implement the changes in mid-February.
For ApiNZ, members must be convinced that dissolution – earmarked for March – is the right move, with the new industry body offering a viable alternative to current operations.
ApiNZ has struggled to stay afloat financially in recent years, and their voluntary membership model has proven ineffective at supporting a Wellington office and a small number of paid staff. Despite those challenges their industry good activities have continued, more recently thanks to a contribution of $309,000 through the government’s Sustainable Food and Fibre Futures (SFFF) fund. Soon, however, it seems it will be largely up to the UMFHA membership to pick up the tab.
So, should beekeepers have greater confidence that a new industry body, likely to gain the bulk of its revenue from UMFHA’s current membership – which includes many businesses without their own beekeeping operations – will better serve them?
“There is a genuine desire to rebuild what an industry organisation looks like,” Kos says.
“We have still set ourselves up as an industry good body. It will still have all the functions, focus groups, Beekeeper Journal, with commercial beekeepers on the board. We have had input into the constitution and our members will. That is what we are working through now. This is still an industry good organisation.”
The ApiNZ chief executive has been buoyed by seeing what can be achieved when the two boards work together, while also noting that the two groups already share many members.
“I am really seeing the value in how we are working together now. I look at the UMFHA board, and they have some independent directors with expertise that have been incredibly valuable in how we set up our professional organisation … the expertise between the two boards and management teams will be a real advantage as to what we roll out in 2025. There is momentum, experience and funding.”
The draft constitution for the new Association has proposed a board of six directors. Four would be elected by the members, two of which would require commercial beekeeping experience, and two with honey exporting experience. The final two director roles would be appointed by the board. Membership would primarily be ‘full’ members of ‘any person or entity involved in beekeeping, extraction, packing, retailing and/or exporting of honey from New Zealand for commercial purposes’, with ‘associate’ membership available to anyone else wanting to support the Association, without being granted voting rights. A flat membership fee for all full members is proposed, but the bulk of funding will come from a honey (likely monofloral mānuka it has been suggested) export levy on members. The constitution also specifically states that the Association would have the purpose of seeking out wider ranging honey industry levies, under the Horticulture Export Authority (HEA) and Commodities Levy Act. Thus, seeking to make a honey export levy mandatory, for members and non-members alike.
There’s no mention of the UMF brand in the proposed constitution though. So where does it stand? UMFHA chief executive Tony Wirght explains.
“The suite of UMF assets – the trademarks, the UMF brand, and all the associated collateral – none of that goes away. All of that survives into the new organisation. We were mindful that we can’t go out calling it UMF 2.0 because it is a broader organisation with a broader purpose for the whole sector. The UMF components become assets owned by the New Zealand Honey Association. They don’t need to be part of the constitution itself, because the constitution allows for the ownership and management of intellectual property. So, we envisage we could be developing IP in all sorts of things. This is one of the areas where we are in discussions with the Mānuka Charitable Trust on, because they are developing stories and we are working with them on that. All of that will become IP we will want to manage … instead of it being a focus on a set of trademarks under UMF, we want to make sure we are enabling a broader consideration of all the assets the industry could create and how we could manage that for the greater good,” Wright says.
Members using UMF branding on their honey exports would pay a ‘UMF levy’ to the Association, while others exporting mānuka honey would likely pay a ‘mānuka levy’.
Many beekeeping and/or honey exporting businesses include at least partial, and some controlling, foreign ownership stakes. This level of overseas ownership shouldn’t be a concern though, Wright believes, instead saying it can offer benefits such as offshore-owned businesses paying levies, but not holding voting rights.
“We want the membership to reflect genuine connection to New Zealand. An example, how we currently manage that within UMFHA, is our member licence holders are all GST registered – for lack of a better description – as New Zealand entities. We also have licences issued to overseas licence holders who are not members. That is a policy that works really well, because it means you still have stakeholders who are involved with our industry, but they don’t have a right to vote about the shape of the industry. That is a principal we are likely to retain,” Wright says.
The disestablishment of ApiNZ comes with a few unique challenges. While a management agency and separate board has carried out the implementation of the American Foulbrood Pest Management Plan (AFB PMP), ApiNZ is the management agency named in legislation and thus overseen operations. That relationship – between the AFB PMP and ApiNZ – is currently being reviewed by the Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) though anyway. Kos says they have briefed the Minister about their intention to disestablish, will do so further in 2025, and the findings of the MPI review will guide decisions beyond that.
As chair of the ApiNZ board, Nathan Guy is comfortable that MPI is well informed of their moves.
“We are very well connected with the government,” Guy says.
“We have briefed ministers on the direction of travel. If we want to get serious about biosecurity, we need the government to help us. If we want to get serious about the Horticulture Export Authority, we need the government to help us. Wherever you look in the industry, engagement with government is going to be vital. ApiNZ has built up a great relationship with government and that can be seen in the funding of the Honey Strategy.”
Guy says they have received assurance from MPI director-general Ray Smith that the current round of SFFF funding allocated to ApiNZ will be transferable to the new Association.
Among the work to be undergone in January and February will be putting in writing how the new Association and Mānuka Charitable Trust – which has the goal of attaining trademarks against the use of the term ‘Mānuka Honey’ by international sellers – relate.
“We are still working through the detail of how we will engage with them long term, but both sides are committed to working together,” Wright says.
(Editor’s note: we explore the Trust’s position more in What is Mānuka Charitable Trust’s Role in the Industry Restructure?).
At a board level both sides of the ApiNZ-UMFHA equation also share that commitment to working together. UMFHA will have to convince their members to accept constitutional changes, and a name change, but Guy believes that it is in their best interest to do so and beekeepers will benefit too.
“This is a new association with a breadth of skills around a board table and management and will be representing beekeepers through to exporters. Ultimately, exporters don’t really have a viable business without beekeepers and that is why biosecurity and bee health will be vitally important moving forward,” Guy says.
Kos has been on the front line for ApiNZ from day one, April 2016, as their chief executive, and she knowns as well as any that it is going to have to be more than just words or philosophies that draws their existing members, and even more so those not currently ApiNZ members, into a new Association.
“The value proposition is what is going to appeal. We have a job to go out and talk to beekeepers and engage. We have some time to do that. The first cab off the rank is to get this new organisation set up. One of the key things, from the beekeepers I talk to, is they need their voices to be heard. They tell me ‘make sure our voices can be heard, and we will join’. I take heart in that, but we will have to go out and talk and engage,” Kos says.
Wright adds to that sentiment as he looks beyond the first quarter of 2025 and to the remainder of a year where they hope the rubber hits the road for the New Zealand Honey Association.
“Assuming we get this over the line with respected memberships, the hard work then begins,” Wright says, adding “that is building the confidence of the wider industry that we are there to deliver on what we have said we are going to.”
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