Our Story

 The story of Superlife

 

Honey production started in 2011 in response to a need for hives to pollinate orchards in the far north of New Zealand. As the ever-growing international demand for quality Manuka honey grew so did the business and Pure Manuka NZ Ltd was formed. The company’s initial focus was on producing, bottling and supplying New Zealand Manuka honey to existing well-known brands. Hundreds of thousands of kilos of Manuka honey per year was being produced in the production facility.

After all those years of experience Pure Manuka NZ Ltd has finally launched its own brand  Superlife. As one of the largest independently owned Manuka honey companies in New Zealand, Pure Manuka NZ owns more than 18,000 hives across nearly 6000 acres of beautiful bushland in some of New Zealand’s most remote environments – countryside so isolated that some hives can only be located by GPS and reached by helicopter.

The company is based in Taupo, at the centre of the North Island. One of New Zealand’s famous thermal wonderlands with incredible natural beauty, Taupo is home to the largest freshwater lake in Australasia (roughly the size of Singapore) and considered the gateway to some of the country’s most spectacular mountains and forest parks. On a clear day the scenery is spectacular, with never-ending views across the lake to snow-capped mountains. In the cold of winter, skiiers swoop down the mountain slopes, while in summer locals and visitors enjoy boating and swimming on the lake. It’s easy to understand how such a beautiful setting can lead to the creation of 100 percent natural Manuka honey.

Not far from Taupo, in the remote wilderness hill country of New Zealand, the honeybees are at work. The light breeze is sweet with the scent of Manuka flowers, and there’s a gentle hum in the air as the bees buzz busily between blossom and hive. This is an everyday miracle – the transformation of nectar into honey, in this case some of the purest, most prized honey in the world.

While humans have recognised and valued the antibacterial properties of honey for centuries, more recent studies have shown that Manuka honey is exceptionally high in antibacterial activity not found in any other variety of honey. This sets it apart as one of nature's true wonder foods. Around the world, people are looking for ways to improve their immunity, and seeking the immune-boosting benefits of Manuka honey. Because Manuka trees (Leptospermum scoparium) are native to New Zealand, this small island nation in the South Pacific is the only place in the world that can claim to make Manuka honey. New Zealand’s unique Manuka honey is recognised internationally for its purity, quality and health benefits – but even there, not all honeys are created equal.

To make the most of what nature provides, Superlife honey is tested on many occasions to ensure its purity and quality. Every batch is independently checked and certified by registered laboratories, and approved by the New Zealand Ministry of Primary Industries. Superlife is also one of the few Manuka honey companies to have BRC certification, which is the highest possible standard available for food manufacturing.

To protect consumers from inferior products, the UMF Honey Association has created a system for grading and guaranteeing the quality of honey claiming to be made from Manuka. The Unique Manuka Factor (UMF) reflects the level of antibacterial activity in the honey, and assures purity and quality. MPI a New Zealand government department has set export rules around the certification for Manuka honey export. They ensure the standards that are claimed are achieved.

Now available in the UK, Europe and the USA, the Superlife brand offers quality Manuka honey at affordable prices, with a choice of UMF 5+, UMF 10+, UMF 15+ or UMF 20+. Lift the lid on a jar of Superlife honey and the intense and unmistakable honey aroma will transport you across the world to the untouched wilderness of New Zealand. It’s your own little piece of paradise in a jar.

 

About Superlife

 

From humble beginnings as a fruit orchard with a sideline in honey that was more a hobby than a business, Superlife has quickly become one of the largest independently owned Mānuka honey companies in New Zealand. Our home is one of New Zealand’s most scenic thermal wonderlands, Taupo, surrounded by verdant green dairy farms, spectacular mountains, pure air and the largest freshwater lake in Australasia. Our company specialises in honey sourced from the nectar of the native Mānuka trees (Leptospermum scoparium) that grow only in New Zealand, honey that has been proven to have more potent health benefits than any other kind of honey in the world. From a handful of hives back in 2011, we have grown into a thriving company with more than 70 full-time employees, with 21,000 hives tended by our specialist beekeepers to product the highest quality honey.

 

Tending our bees

 

Our hives are located in areas of dense Mānuka growth throughout the North Island of New Zealand, sometimes in areas so remote that we can only reach them by helicopter. As Mānuka trees produce their beautiful blossoms only in spring, we have only one opportunity a year to collect the honey made from their nectar. For a fleeting window of only six to eight weeks, our millions of honeybees do their work – pollinating the delicate blossoms while collecting nectar to take back to their hives and transform into honey. We employ the best professional beekeepers, whose job it is to tend to the needs of the bees, making sure they are healthy, happy and have everything they need to succeed in their annual mission. The way we think about it, it’s not the bees who are working for us – it's us who are working for the bees! 

 

 

The Queen Bees

 

At the heart of every hive is its queen bee, mother to all the other bees in the colony. While the female worker honeybees fly out each day during the warmer months of the year to collect nectar and pollen, it’s the male bees’ role to mate with the queen bee, and the queen’s job to stay home and lay eggs to repopulate the hive. The survival and success of the colony depends on having a young, healthy, well-mated and highly productive queen, and our beekeepers use modern scientific practices to enhance the work of nature and ensure our hives and colonies are in peak condition to produce the highest quality authentic Mānuka honey.

 

 

From Hive to Home

 

We take our responsibility as custodians of nature’s bounty very seriously and manage all aspects of the honey production journey ourselves to ensure the highest quality result. Once it reaches our bottling facility, we store it under ideal temperature-controlled conditions to ensure the UMF remains stable and, in some cases, even increases with time. When it's ready to be bottled it’s transferred to a warmer room so it softens a little and is easier to filter finely and decant into our Superlife branded jars. We fill and distribute more than two million jars of the purest all-natural Mānuka honey each year – a huge logistical challenge that’s guided by a finely honed combination of state-of-the-art digital technology and the skill and expertise of our professional team.

 

 

Our Trust Marks

 

New Zealand is so proud of its unique Mānuka honey and so passionate about protecting consumers from inferior imitations, that production and labeling of Mānuka honey is regulated by law. All honey claiming to be Mānuka honey must be tested in a laboratory authorised by the Ministry of Primary Industries, to make sure it contains specific attributes that distinguish Mānuka honey from other honey. Only if it possesses certain levels of four chemical markers from the nectar of Mānuka blossoms and one DNA marker from Mānuka pollen can it be labeled Multifloral Mānuka honey – and there’s an even higher bar to reach to earn the label Monofloral Mānuka honey. At Superlife we test our honey numerous times during its production cycle to ensure it meets government guidelines and delivers a 100 percent genuine Mānuka honey experience to honey lovers around the world.