We talk a lot about what you can do with your Wedderspoon Manuka Honey once it’s in your pantry, but have you ever wondered how it got from the hive to your home?
The traceability process we follow ensures that Wedderspoon Manuka Honey can be traced at every stage, promoting transparency and quality assurance. We take pride in offering customers the most authentic and unaltered Manuka Honey, and are proud to invite customers to understand the process behind it.
Read on to learn about the journey that each and every jar of Wedderspoon Manuka Honey goes through to get from our hives to your home.
Hive Management
Wedderspoon’s honeybee hives are located in New Zealand, where Manuka flowers are indigenous. While our honeybees feast freely on wild Manuka blossoms along the crystal waters of Lake Wakatipu and the glaciers of Mt. Cook, we keep tight records on the hives.
Our beekeepers in New Zealand register with local authorities, providing information about their apiaries - or, where the hives are kept. Each and every hive is tagged with a unique identifier that includes information about its specific location and the beekeeper responsible for it. This process is called hive management, and is an important administrative aspect of Manuka Honey production.
Harvesting Liquid Gold
When it’s time to harvest Manuka Honey from the hives, our beekeepers are ever so gentle with the honeybees, disturbing them as little as possible. The beekeepers keep detailed records, including the date, time and weather conditions present during the harvest. Additionally, each batch of harvested Manuka Honey is assigned a unique batch number so that we can connect it to the specific hive(s) it came from. This means that should there ever be a question about a particular batch of Manuka Honey, we can easily trace it and confirm details about the harvest. After the Manuka Honey is harvested, it’s transported for processing and packaging.
Processing and Packaging Manuka Honey
Authenticity is important to us, so all of our Manuka Honey is processed and packaged in New Zealand in our factory which is just 40 miles away from the hives. Once it arrives at our factory, each and every batch of Wedderspoon Manuka Honey is carefully filtered, creamed and tested for quality and contaminants. This helps us ensure that every jar of Wedderspoon Manuka Honey is of highest quality. We keep quality control test records on file for easy traceability down the line. As a company that produces consumable products, this is a very important step.
After quality control testing, our Manuka Honey is packaged. Each jar is labeled with information including the batch number, origin and processing date. The origin specifies the floral source and geographic location from which the honey was harvested. These detailed records are important to us, as we are committed to our high quality standards and transparency. We can easily access and provide information about every batch of our Manuka Honey, at any time.
From Shipment to Shelf
After being packaged, it’s time for Wedderspoon Manuka Honey to be transported from our facility in New Zealand to our Wedderspoon warehouse in the US. At the time of transport, shipping documents are created that include batch numbers and source information. As you can probably tell by now, we at Wedderspoon like to keep very detailed records in many forms, and our records don’t stop here! We are committed to maintaining traceability throughout the entire production and supply chain process. Each transfer of Manuka Honey jars - from shipment to shelf - is accompanied by additional records so that regardless of where the product is or who it is with, it can be easily traced.
Sustainability, Ethics and Transparency
Here at Wedderspoon, sustainability and ethics are at the center of our business practices. Implementing sustainable practices is important to us, as it directly impacts the environment and our pollinators. Our honeybees are part of our family, and we treat them with the utmost care and respect. You can learn more about the dream team and what our harvesting and packaging process looks like on our blog.
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