Whether it be a sore throat, a tickling or hacking cough, or issues of oral hygiene, such as dental plaque and gingivitis, Green Bay’s Honeysuckers, 100% manuka honey lozenges, may well be the natural answer.

Manuka honey is well known for its powerful anti-bacterial and anti-microbial properties as many recent clinical studies from universities and research institutes around the world have demonstrated. It is these properties that make manuka honey unique amongst other honeys and allow it to aid in the soothing of and recovery from a sore throat and cough and to maintain good oral hygiene.

Green Bay Original Honeysuckers are the world’s first and only lozenges made from 100% organic manuka honey and were specifically created to provide the most convenient way of benefiting from the goodness of one of nature’s revered healing foods without the inconvenience of having to carry around a sticky jar of honey. Each lozenge provides a pre-determined measure of honey and, most important for soothing sore throats and oral hygiene, it ensures the infected areas have a prolonged contact with 100% manuka honey through sucking the lozenge for the minimum recommended period of 5 minutes.

Popular with singers, frequent travellers and Mum's, Honeysuckers from Green Bay are made from raw 12+ Active organic manuka honey from New Zealand which is dried using a unique patent-pending production process that ensures the honey retains all of its well documented health-maintaining properties. Honeysuckers contain no additives, stabilizers, man made chemicals or refined sugar that are often present in medicated sweets.

Pilot research study suggests manuka honey to be effective in oral hygiene.

The results from a small in-vivo pilot study showed that by taking manuka honey in a solid form, plaque and the number of bleeding sites around the gums (an indicator of gingivitis) were reduced by a statistically significant amount, in a group of 30 subjects. The research team postulated that manuka honey’s anti-inflammatory action working in conjunction with its well documented anti-bacterial action (which reduces the quantity of supragingival plaque – the plaque that causes gingivitis) is what made manuka honey so effective in this trial. Although the results were encouraging and statistically significant, a more substantive trial is now required to prove this hypothesis.

The study, which was published in the peer reviewed Journal of The International Academy of Periodontology (2004), was conducted by the School of Dentistry at the University of Otago in New Zealand and Peter Molan, the world leading research professor in manuka honey, from the University of Waikato.

Green Bay Manuka Honeysuckers retail at £3.95 for a packet of 8 lozenges. In addition to the Original 100% Manuka Honey lozenges, the range includes four delicious flavours: Lemon, Red Superfruits, Blackcurrant and Echinacea & Propolis. They are available at Waitrose, Ocado, John Lewis Food Halls (London and Bluewater), Planet Organic, John Bell, Croydon and 650 other independent health food shops, farm shops and delis in the UK and Ireland. Or they can be bought direct from Green Bay via its website:

But isn’t manuka honey, like most sweet foods, bad for the teeth?

Well, the answer is perhaps not. A preliminary research study (need details see the e-mail with this release) has shown that manuka honey with an activity rating of 12+ is unlikely to cause dental caries. This study showed that manuka honey can inhibit the growth and production of lactic acid from oral bacteria which are responsible for dental caries and can also stop oral streptococci bacteria producing dextran which is a main component of dental plaque.

This initial study was in vitro (in the laboratory) study and further clinical in-vivo studies (using human subjects) will be required to prove the preliminary findings.