Roman Travers: Australian Mānuka Honey?

What are you having on your toast this morning? Hopefully it’s some delicious Australian mānuka honey.

If we don’t win the ongoing battle with Australia to claim the word mānuka as specifically unique to New Zealand, then we may well be having Aussie mānuka honey on our toast and letting Australian producers have their way. 

There is a group of New Zealand honey producers who’ve not given up. They’re still working to trademark the term mānuka honey and they’ve refiled court proceedings in the UK and EU.

This isn’t just some backyard group of apiary enthusiasts . They’re being backed by the wider New Zealand honey industry and the government. 

The ‘New Zealand Manuka Honey Appellation Society’ has been working to protect the term so that only honey from New Zealand can be called mānuka since 2015.

They’ve been here before and lost back in 2021. But this time around they say they’ve learnt a whole lot and they’re having another crack at protecting what is demonstrably and obviously a New Zealand name and product. 

John Rawcliffe, says the industry learned a lot from the failed bid and were now trying again. He says they’re able to stand back and understand a little bit more about the process about the legal nuances and that they’ve been able to take all those on board - and refile.

The EU's Intellectual Office is yet to make a decision but the Mānuka Charitable Trust had withdrawn its initial case and refiled there too. 

The trust doing all the legal work reckon they have the financial backing of the honey industry and enough backing to continue the trademark fight for another five years.

The next time I’m walking past the honey section in the supermarket, I might just grab a pot of something delicious in the hope that my support will enable these good people to take the sting out of Australia’s ridiculous claim to something they would not tolerate if the scenario was reversed.  

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