Seeing disorder and inefficiency in the process of buying and selling bulk honey in New Zealand, Wairarapa beekeepers Scott Anstis and Louise Hight have taken matters into their own hands. Following four years of work, the recently-launched New Zealand Honey Market – a website where sellers can list honey, and a one stop shop where buyers can more readily find what they need – is now open to listings.
It’s not showy, but they hope it will be effective. One look at nzhoneymarket.com tells you a lot about what those behind it hope to achieve – it’s straight down to business.
The home page features the NZ Honey Market logo and site menu at top, then it is straight into the honey listings.
“We didn’t want it flowery,” Anstis says.
“No flash pictures, just tidy and unemotional. Business should be unemotional, so we wanted an NZX kind of look – straight to the point of what is going on.”
Despite not being promoted up until this point, there is already nearing 150 listings for batches of honey – the vast majority monofloral mānuka.
The need for a well-organised honey trading platform was first discussed by Anstis and Hight in 2020 and the couple, who own 800 hive Wairarapa business Royal Mānuka, have been beavering away to get the site up and running ever since.
“We saw the New Zealand method of selling honey was unique, in that there was no market place. I thought this was because it was a young industry and it hadn’t developed an open market which you see in most other industries. It looked like a dog’s breakfast, the way people were selling honey all over the place, and it hasn’t really changed much,” Anstis says.
“We decided it needed a selling platform, somewhere where sellers could sell honey and buyers could buy, and they could come together in one place.”
Honey sellers can list their honey for free on the website, where buyers can visit, filter honey listings by a wide range of attributes – storage region; variety; DHA; MGO; NPA; HMF; etc. – and make offers to buy. Once two parties come to an agreement, NZ Honey Market buys the honey from the seller before reselling to the purchaser at the agreed price, plus their commission – $1/kg or 3% of purchase price, whichever is higher. A one tonne listing minimum for low grade honey will also be in place.
“What we are charging for our services is all out in the open, and we are not trading in the honey ourselves. That is against what we are hoping to achieve,” Hight says.
A key part of the service is many of the logistics of the trade will be organised by NZ Honey Market – think sourcing complete test results and organising transport of the honey.
“As a beekeeper, I think the question is, it is free to list, so why wouldn’t you?” Anstis asks rhetorically, while Hight sees it from the buyers’ perspective.
“Buyers can come to a place where they can pretty much find anything they want. We have established the site with enough search criteria that will make it easy for them to find what they need. They don’t have to call 30 beekeepers to find it,” she says.
While there is potential to automate more of the trading in future, as it stands the couple keep a close eye on any new people registering, offers made, and deals done – giving traders confidence things will go smoothly and there is a human behind all the dealings.
It’s very early days for the trading platform and they are realistic there will be some teething issues, but they are both contactable by phone and email, listed on the site, so improvements will be made swiftly.
Both buyers and sellers can register to join on the site and once they have done so they can shop for or list honey as they require. Anstis says it will necessitate “a bit of a mind change” from beekeepers to list on the site, but believes it will allow them to put their produce in front of more potential buyers.
For it to work for them, as hosts of the platform and middle-men themselves in the trade, access to appropriate lab tests results for honey being bought and sold is imperative, Anstis stresses.
“With that in mind, it would be a big help if beekeepers allowed us to take their results straight from the labs. If they get in contact with us, we can explain why that is, and what they need to include in their sample submission form which will allow us to access that data.”
If the platform progresses as they have planned, it will create efficiencies in the market place which are much needed, they say.
“Ultimately we hope the buyer will be paying less and the beekeeper getting more,” Hight explains.
“We have tracked honey in the past which has gone through seven middle men before it has been potted. We hope, with NZ Honey Market, the beekeeper gets more money and the wholesaler or packer is buying it without so many middle men in between,” she says, adding “It should be a win-win for everyone”.
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