Karin Kos: Apiculture NZ CEO on the challenging times for the global honey sector

Times are challenging for the global honey sector.  

Oversupply, inflated prices, and global volatility continue to drive sector woes.  

Apiculture NZ CEO Karin Kos told Mike Hosking both domestic and export factors are contributing. 

In 2019, New Zealand had a record 1 million hives and 10,000 beekeepers, but now there’s under 500,000 hives and 7,600 beekeepers, she says.  

At the same time, Kos told Hosking, there was softening global demand post-Covid, particularly in some of our largest markets. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
And a lot of things going well currently obviously for

(00:02):
operators of the land in this country. But honey does
have trouble. Our largest maluca supplier, as we told you
earlier completed they were subject to a takeover bit yesterday.
We've got apparently over supply, inflated prices, global volatility. Now
Karen Costs is the chief executive of Agriculture in z
And as with us, Karen morning, Good morning. Is this
a domestic or an export story or both.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
It's a bit of both, and I think it's really
helpful to give you some context. If I take you
back to twenty nineteen, we had a recall one million
five Today we're just under five hundred thousand, and our
register beekeeper numbers were at ten thousand and twenty nineteen
now about seven thousand, six hundred. And at the same time,

(00:47):
we had some really big production years, some honey harvest
year's records, and then unfortunately on the demand side post COVID,
particularly in relation to our largest markets, for example China,
we saw some real soft of demand that global uncertainty
rarely impacted on our Manuka honey sales exports, and that

(01:07):
is our largest export export.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
Honey by far is the retail around plan.

Speaker 2 (01:14):
Yes, So I think the key thing is no one
wants to repeat the mistakes of the past. We're going
around the country at the moment talking to beekeepers, talking
to exporters and getting a real sense that the contraction
has happened. It's been very painful, it's very difficult, but
it's a good chance to reset. So we developed a

(01:36):
honey strategy. There are certain components of that that we
want to reinvigorate. But I think he is having a
unified industry, being able to build a sufficient red litary
framework so that we can take a stronger lead and
how we self regulate around quality and standards, but also

(01:56):
just looking at better industry coordination. I look at some
of the other sectors. For primary sectors, they have great data,
they have great information that can really inform the industry.
We don't have that, So there are lots of things
that we can do. I will say that there is
an ongoing demand for good quality New Zealand honey, and

(02:19):
in talking to beekeepers and exporters around the country, I
do get a sense that honey is moving, which.

Speaker 1 (02:25):
Is great, fantastic. Well, I wish you the very best
well it, We'll stay in touch Caaren Cos, who's the
chief executive of Apiculture New Zealand. For more from the
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