By Jasmine Kaa
Walking down a supermarket aisle in Osaka, Japan will never be the same. A new buzz is in the air and it’s taking the land of the Samurai by storm. Ora Honey is a sweet sensation that’s not only putting ‘Maori Made’ on the top shelves of high end Japanese supermarkets, but has also found a home in Ireland, England, France and Germany.
Ora Honey is the brain child of Whakaari International but it was Te Whanau-a-Apanui tribal leader, Eddie Matchitt, who began the journey. Matchitt was looking for employment opportunities for the community of Whangaparaoa. At the time, the powerful anti-bacterial and medicinal qualities of the manuka tree were becoming recognised internationally. So in 2001, Matchitt got together a number of Maori land incorporations who put up half-a-million dollars to buy three small bee keeping companies. After running into cash flow problems, Wira was brought on board both as an investor and mentor to the company.
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Key quotes from article:
“Now Whakaari International markets and distributes 50-60 tonnes of honey annually for Te Whanau-a-Apanui and Wira’s own company called East Coast Beekeepers under the Ora Honey brand. China and Dubai are new markets which have indicated interest in the product, and Wira says they will soon rebrand as ‘Ora Honey, Maori Manuka Honey.’ “We are lifting our game because overseas consumers want to buy an authentic, indigenous product. Kind of like how Tohu have marketed themselves internationally. Even with the global recession they still want our honey.”
“Despite the up take of beekeeping has been slow on the East Cape, Wira remains confident that eventually more tribes will go into the business not purely as suppliers but as owners. “We are looking to build a million dollar operation into a multi-million dollar business in the next two to three years. We’re also considering franchising our operation so ownership can be shared between our company and other hapu who buy into it. It’s in our company’s best interests to make maximum profits, so what ever profits we make, they make as well.”
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