Editorial policy
The rules this site runs on. They are published so you can tell a page that checked from a page that did not.
No health, wellness or “good for” claims
Not a sourcing problem, a deliberate rule, and stricter than the law requires. Honey is a food, health claims about food are regulated in New Zealand, and the rules cover advertising as well as labelling. This site describes honey as a food and stops there.
No invented businesses, people or reviews
Every business named on this site is real and linked to its own website. We publish no producer directory, because a directory has to assert certifications, hive counts and years trading, and those are facts held by the business or a certifying body rather than by us.
No rankings, ratings or “best of” lists
We have not tasted these honeys side by side under controlled conditions. Where we order anything — light to dark, for instance — the attribute it is ordered by is stated in the table.
No production or market statistics we cannot source
Regional shares, national output, hive numbers and export values circulate freely in this category with nothing behind them. We could not find current, citable figures for New Zealand honey production by floral type, so none appear here.
No legal definition claimed for “raw”
New Zealand has no legal definition of raw honey. We say so plainly rather than implying the word means something specific, and the word appears here only inside a producer’s own product name, credited to them.
Flavour descriptions are generalisations, and labelled as such
Single-source honey varies by site and season. A description of rewarewa is what rewarewa honey is generally like, not a guarantee about the jar in front of you — and that variation is evidence the honey has not been standardised.
Mānuka
We do not compete for mānuka terms and we do not grade or price mānuka honey. It is a regulated category with a government test behind it, and it belongs on nz-manuka-honey.co.nz. The one thing this site says about it is what distinguishes it from kānuka, because the two plants are routinely confused.
Corrections
Tell us and we will fix it. A correction to a botanical or regional detail is the most useful thing anyone can send us.