The finding of excessive HMF (hydroxymethylfurfural) content － an indicator of possible heat damage － in UMF-labelled mānuka honey products in China and Singapore will not surprise northern hemisphere honey traders. Based on the experience of long hot Tokyo days and nights, Bruce Roscoe outlines the measures traders and distributors can take to protect honey from heat damage.
By Bruce Roscoe
A cargo of honey has arrived at the port of Tokyo. The pallets, wrapped or jacketed in a heat-shielding material, are transported to a temperature-controlled distribution centre. A temperature recording device is retrieved from an upper layer of a pallet. Since leaving the premises of the New Zealand producer, data have been logged at 30-minute intervals. The data are uploaded to a computer, read, and posted in graphic form against a batch number to a website.
Unlike in the case of highly temperature-sensitive cargoes such as vaccines, the data are not read live and the container temperature cannot be adjusted during shipment. The goal is more to show that the temperature did not exceed 37 degrees Celsius during road, rail, and ocean transport, and in particular not over the equator at 0 degrees latitude. Research points to bees － masters of temperature control－ cooling and heating their hives to temperatures within a range of 25-35°C. For ease of explanation, "below 37°C" assists customers because they can associate it with body temperature.
Before the COVID-19 pandemic some traders used only air freight for their mānuka honey cargoes. As a marketing ploy, they said competitors' sea-freighted mānuka honey would be cooked over the equator. They seemed not to understand that high equatorial temperatures occurred more over land than sea and that heat damage is caused by temperature over time. Crossing only 1 degree of latitude or 60 nautical miles takes less than four hours for the type of container ship plying the direct NZ-Japan route. Temperature data logs showed "cooked over the equator" to be a fiction. When the pandemic halted air freight, all mānuka cargoes had to be sea freighted.
Customers came to expect temperature monitoring as a matter of course. Some exporters, as an alternative marketing ploy, began to make a greater use of refrigerated containers. These enlarge the carbon footprint, but now seem a fixed part of the mānuka trades for the added assurance of temperature control.
Time Bombs in the Text
Before we enter the world of storage, it is essential to check all wording on the cartons and jar labels used by a New Zealand supplier whose cargoes are imported for the first time. A time-bomb may be ticking in the text. At issue is the purist view of some honey producers about the optimal storage temperature for honey that has been finely crystallized or "creamed" during processing in order to make it easily spreadable. An importer known to this writer did suffer the detonation of such a bomb.
Advice to store at "under 16 degrees" was printed on both carton and product label of a South Island mānuka product. The importer faithfully, but foolishly, repeated that information on the Japanese product label. This mistake was not noticed by the buyer of a supermarket chain then of some 130 stores. But the successor to that buyer did notice. He said: "I've either got to put this product in the chilled goods section or order a recall, and I'm not going to put honey in chilled goods". The recall was ordered, the mistake unforgiven.
Advice that creamed honey should be stored at 16°C is relevant in New Zealand. In Japanese one has to write, "Store at ambient temperature" for grocery goods. In-store supermarket temperatures here are set at around 21°C. But grocery products usually are warehoused at room temperature. Last year in Tokyo temperatures during the hottest months of July, August, and September recorded highs of 33.9°C, 34.3°C, and 31.2°C, while humidity for those months averaged 72%, 78%, and 80%. Humidity levels are important, too, as high humidity can degrade product labels. What to do?
Find the Chocolate
In the circle of this writer, honey is stored at 20°C at all hours. If the honey is to be stored in a third-party warehouse, it is essential that the warehouse is dedicated to grocery goods and advisable to inspect the facility in person. Chocolate will be among the grocery goods. Arrange for honey cargoes to be stored in the same area used for chocolate, where there should be air flow and temperature control within a 15-20°C range. When choosing a trucking or courier company, find a chocolate specialist. Ideally, the importer or wholesaler will operate the warehouse, but such is usually the case only for supply to small retail chains or outlets that do not manage their own distribution centres.
If you have a choice of shipping directly to stores rather than the distribution centre of the store chain, always ship directly. In the case of online store sales where you are shipping directly to individual customers, a good practice is to ship as late as possible so that the honey is not left in the uncontrolled environment of a courier company. Knowledge and control of each transportation segment are key.
A Bee Body-Part Silence
Customers will ask questions about honey and heat. What to say? Many mānuka sellers － UMF and non-UMF alike － on the major online platforms tell stories. They routinely state in product descriptions, or even in product titles, that the honey is hikanetsu or "unheated". At honey promotions, the question whether the honey is hikanetsu is nearly always asked. One cannot shatter customers' illusions by explaining that all processed honey has been heated by packers to different temperatures during the stages of processing.
One cannot say, "Well, we had to filter out the bee body parts － legs, wings － and wax from the honey we had received from the beekeeper. But the honey had crystallized. We couldn't filter it without dissolving the crystals so we heated it to about 45-50°C". Or, in the case of liquid honey, "We flash-heated it to 75°C but only for a few minutes".
Still, as a trader and distributor, it is important to understand at what stages and why heat is applied to honey during production. In the case of high-priced mānuka, some customers have made a study of it and know more than you may think. They also know what your competitors have told them, and your competitors may know more than you.
The issue of excessive HMF content is more likely to relate to long periods of storage at warm temperatures than careful, knowledgeable processing. High sales turnover is key. If turnover at traditional retail outlets slows, or if through the loss of a customer a large volume of honey remains in storage, selling that inventory through e-commerce platforms becomes vital. Discount it through the ruse of label or other cosmetic damage, which eliminates complaint from upmarket retailers that would reject such product.
To individual customers whom you meet at promotions or whose questions you answer online －and the questions will come like a honey flow － talk about the practices of bees rather than honey packers. Talk about how they themselves will heat honey through muscle movement so that it is readily edible and how they will cool a hive through wing movement. And mindful that in nature they build nests in the shade, say under the leafy branches of a tree, mention that your honey is stored cool, just like chocolate.
Bruce Roscoe is a Japan-based New Zealander providing honey importation and distribution consultancy. He is a former director of research for Deutsche Bank Securities Japan, with extensive experience as an equity research analyst and as correspondent for both leading New Zealand and global media publications.
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