100% Satisfaction Guarantee

Because we take so much care in selecting and making our products and know our growers personally, it seems natural that we can offer you the security of a Quality Promise. 

Service

Green Bay is a family business where the founders still work in the business daily. We make it easy to stay in touch and there is always a real person available should you want a chat.

 

 

100% Quality Assurance

Manuka honey used to be a secret that only the few knew about, however it's amazing health giving properties - fighting infection, soothing inflammation and settling upset stomachs to name a few - have led it to become increasingly popular across the UK.    
To meet this demand there has been a steep rise in the amount of manuka honey available in the UK and this has led to there being very significant differences in effectiveness and quality.  With this in mind it is very important when buying Maunka Honey to look for a product that has not been blended, excessively filtered, over-heated or doctored in any way. 

 

 

Green Bay only use 100% pure New Zealand Honey

New Zealand is the home of Manuka Honey, the origin of the manuka bush and the unspoilt haven which to this day produces the finest Manuka Honey available. Though it is a small and remote island, it has relatively few inhabitants and very little heavy industry to pollute the nutrient rich soils and varied flora. Green Bay Harvest is committed to sourcing the best products from this unique location, and presenting them to the world without changing or diluting the purity and quality by mixing with foreign ingredients

 

100% Lab Tested Activity

The Green Bay Honeycomb Programme is a voluntary quality initiative, we are that confident in the quality and taste of our honey that we offer the Green Bay Harvest's Quality Promise, backed by our 100% satisfaction guarantee.  We continuously check our Manuka Honey ensuring it excels along all six dimensions of quality, and are proud to share with our customers the results and the standards they should expect.

 

  • Each drum of Manuka Honey is laboratory tested in New Zealand for activity (anti-bacterial strength)
  •  Our lab technician is Sophie Brake who has 16 years experience testing honey; her lab is ISO9001 accredited
  • We label our honey as the minimum activity contained

Clinical research indicates that an activity rating of between 10+ to 15+ represents the ideal potency to deal with the vast majority of needs. Our Manuka Honey is provided at either 10+ or 15+ which indicates the minimum activity found in the jar. Each batch is tested and jarred individually, so if one achieves an activity score of 14+ it will only ever be used in our 10+ jars. It is worth noting that the maximum at-hive activity level is a little over 15+, which is why we don't supply honey above this level.

We ensure that our Honey is 100% genuine

At Green Bay Harvest we make it our business to know our growers personally, and only work with considerate experts.  We work hard to maintain the natural taste profiles of each estate.

Our raw honey is sourced from a small group of apiarists in the south island of New Zealand who are committed to producing high quality honey. At a time when there is concern over the diminishing bee population, we are proud to work with such careful and considerate experts. We know all of our suppliers personally - we can name the person who supplied each jar-full - and this close relationship works well for us and our customers benefit from a great tasting, quality honey. Our apiarists are always keen to talk through the details with us, helping us find the best batches, and as a result our customers can trace their honey back to the hive.    


 Unblended

  • We don't blend batches, which maintains their distinctive tastes
  • We don't average between batches to dilute activity

Blending honey can offer advantages to the producer by smoothing out natural variations in the honey, a batch with a disappointing taste or low activity can be mixed with a better batch to create something in between. We hand pick the best batches, and so want to deliver the unadulterated taste to our customers. As such we never blend our honey, and instead of diluting to improve activity we simply provide the honey with a declared minimum level of activity.


Unpasteurized

  • All of our honey is cold pressed
  • We use only coarse filtration which removes honeycomb and wax, but leaves propolis and pollen
  • For pouring, our honey is warmed very gradually, and always below natural hive temperatures (which rarely go above 37ºC)

 

Heating honey can seriously impair its health giving benefits. We provide our honey in as raw a form possible, without heating or pasteurisation, and this means none of the manuka honey’s super-healthy enzymes and other nutrients are lost. Honey requires a little motivation to be poured into jars, something we take our time over by warming gently to the temperature of an active hive, around 37ºC. This is much lower than the Soil Association's guideline 50ºC and well below the 80ºC suffered by mainstream honeys. Once in the jar, we leave our honey to set naturally, never resorting to forced crystallisation.


Taste Tested

We are as passionate about the taste of our honey as we are about the quality of its health giving benefits. A sample from each batch of honey is taste tested by a member of the Green Bay family to ensure the taste matches the characteristic profile of the region it's from. Indeed, each Manuka Honey growing area has a distinctive flavour determined by the individual micro-climates which vary considerably across the South Island of New Zealand.

Green Bay Quality Promise

“Our aim at Green Bay is simple; to produce the healthiest manuka honey one can buy and our Raw Manuka Honey is as pure and as close to the hive as you can get without being stung! Our approach to achieve this goal is reflected by the six quality factors we rigorously adhere to when we choose honey, including: 100% NZ origin, unpasteurized, unblended, certified activity test; single estate"

Single estate, unblended, artisan produced - 

  • Minimally filtered - removing unwanted particles like bee’s legs and larger pieces of honeycomb, but retaining naturally occurring amounts of propolis and pollen which are removed when fine filtered.
  • Not pasteurised or over-heated – its is cold pressed and filtered and only warmed very gradually for pouring and never above 37°C, which represents the balmy temperature in the hive during the summer harvest. This means none of the manuka honey’s super-healthy enzymes and other nutrients (many of which are destroyed by high levels of heat) are lost. For example it is not set by forced crystallisation but is left to do so naturally in the jar.
  • Tested for distinctive character and quality – Green Bay is owned by Jo, Greg, John and Maria Glass who are passionate about the taste of their honey as they are about the quality of its health giving benefits. A sample from each batch of honey is taste tested by a member of the family team to ensure the taste matches the characteristic profile of the region it's from. Indeed, each manuka honey growing area has a distinctive taste profile determined by the soil quality and the individual micro-climates that are common in the South Island of New Zealand. All Green Bay manuka honey is sold in recyclable glass jars, avoiding any potential risk of chemicals leaching into the honey from plastic jars.
  • A high activity factor product - the rating that can be seen on jars of manuka honey (e.g. 10+/15+ Active) is equivalent to a correlating percentage of phenol solution.  Green Bay manuka honey has an activity factor of either 10+ or 15+ certified by an independent professional laboratory which runs a test accredited by ISO 9001. Clinical research indicates that an activity rating of between 10+/15+ represents the ideal potency to deal with the vast majority of needs.

Really Raw Manuka Honey 

Is a jelly like (thixotropic) honey when extracted from the hive and naturally sets into large crystals over time. The colour of the honey varies by region and also darkens over time and with heating. Green Bay only uses honey from the most recent harvests to ensure the optimum product quality for its customers. 

Not all manuka honey is by any means of the same quality or effectiveness. Here are a few pointers to help guide the consumer to choose manuka honey that will deliver the benefits it is known for:  

  • Industry standard laboratory tests show that manuka honey with and activity rating of under 8.2+ is of an activity level which is not detectable and therefore is unlikely to be of any health benefit (e.g. recently manuka honey has been produced in the UK with a claimed activity rating of 5+ and so whilst this product no doubt tastes delicious clinical evidence from lab tests indicates it may not convey the amazing health benefits for which manuka is known). In fact many other varieties of honey can have an equivalent activity rating of up to 5+, and yet they do not have any of the health benefits associated with manuka honey.
  • Product with an activity factor or UMF of over 15+ may well have been aged or heated to boost its activity rating.
  • Fresh, unheated honey has a far better taste and so if looking for a very high activity product; check it has not been aged. Also, for the vast majority of uses a 15+ manuka honey will be more than adequate.
  • A high proportion of manuka honey available in the UK will have been heated to between 50°C and 60°C during processing which will significantly inhibit the vital enzyme activity, so important to many of the health giving benefits associated with manuka honey.
  • Some brands of manuka honey are blended with other common varieties of honey to average down the activity rating, which will dilute its purity and also its unique taste.

 

Manuka Honey is an expensive honey that people use because of the health benefits they experience and in order to derive these benefits in full it is important that the above factors are taken into consideration. 

 

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