Best Manuka Honey

Mānuka honey is honey from bees that collected nectar from Leptospermum scoparium. New Zealand Food Safety, at the Ministry for Primary Industries, requires exported honey labeled as mānuka to be tested by a recognised laboratory against a definition introduced in 2018. A 2023 review did not change that definition.

The definition uses five attributes: four chemicals from nectar and one DNA marker from mānuka pollen. For monofloral mānuka, all of these have to be met: 3-phenyllactic acid at or above 400 mg/kg, 2’-methoxyacetophenone at or above 5 mg/kg, 2-methoxybenzoic acid at or above 1 mg/kg, 4-hydroxyphenyllactic acid at or above 1 mg/kg, and mānuka pollen DNA below Cq 36. Multifloral mānuka uses a lower band for 3-phenyllactic acid, at or above 20 mg/kg and below 400 mg/kg, and 2’-methoxyacetophenone at or above 1 mg/kg, with the other three attributes the same. Fail one attribute and it is not that class of mānuka honey (MPI).

That test answers “is this mānuka?” It does not answer “how much methylglyoxal is in the jar?”

Methylglyoxal (MGO) is reported in milligrams per kilogram. A higher number means more of that compound in the sample that was tested. It does not, by itself, prove the honey passed New Zealand’s five-attribute definition, and UMF says it does not equal a UMF grade. Leptosperin is the authenticity marker in the UMF set. DHA is a precursor that converts to MGO over time. HMF rises when honey is heated or stored a long time. UMF’s cap in the table above is under 40 mg/kg HMF at each grade.

Mavric and colleagues (2008) measured very high methylglyoxal in six New Zealand mānuka honeys, from 38 to 761 mg/kg, and showed antibacterial activity against E. coli and S. aureus in an agar well test. That is a laboratory result. This page does not treat it as evidence about wounds, infections, or sore throats in people.

We did not open brand shops, so there is no price per grade and no Comvita or other brand comparison. A higher grade costs more in the market generally. Without a current price and a matching certificate, a “price per MGO” figure would be invented. None is printed.

We did not open a clinical side-effect rate for graded mānuka honey, so none is printed. Honey is a sugar. People who count carbohydrates should count it. CDC says not to give honey to children younger than 12 months, because honey can contain the bacteria that cause infant botulism. That warning is about honey in general, not a mānuka trial.

“Fake manuka” is a real category of dispute. The check that exists in public rules is the MPI export definition and, separately, a UMF batch license. We are not quoting a percentage of jars that fail. We did not open a survey that we could cite with a numerator and a denominator.