Success couldn't be sweeter

Paul and Sheryl Steens, who operate their manuka honey extraction business from Tauranga and Masterton, could not have thought of a better way to celebrate their 30th wedding anniversary.
Twenty-eight years after establishing the business, they were told their Raw Beekeeper manuka honey range had become the second biggest selling product in the Harrods Pantry in London.
It was a sure sign that Steens Honey's exports were taking off - after moving into retailing 12 months ago.
"We are putting our energies into getting the honey on the shelf," said Sheryl. "Our product is cold pressed, unpasteurised and unblended. We take out the chunks of wax and the rest is as nature intended."
She describes their pots of honey simply: "It's like dipping your finger directly into the honeycomb."
The Steens started out as beekeepers in Papamoa in the mid-1980s, went into commercial kiwifruit pollination, collected pure manuka from remote parts of the North Island, became a wholesaler supplier of manuka honey and then decided to make their own range.
At present, Steens Honey sells 80 per cent of its manuka honey in bulk to manufacturers and 20 per cent is its own brand - there are eight varieties - for the retail sector. It wants to increase the retail segment.
Steens Honey made its first sales trip to England two years ago and has been in the Harrods Pantry for 12 months. Its highly-active honey, with antibacterial properties, has gone into other health food stores in London - Planet Organic, Wholefoods UK, Fortnum and Mason in Piccadilly, Natural Kitchen in Marylebone, and John Bell & Croyden, the Queen's pharmacy.
Steens is also selling in Moore Wilson's in Wellington and The Good Food Trading Company at Mount Maunganui.
Pots of Steens Raw Manuka Honey have gone to Germany and Poland, and 100,000 honey packs have been sent to Korea.
This month, the honey extracted and packed in Masterton is being launched in 240 Waitrose supermarkets across Britain, selling in its grocery and pharmacy aisles.
Steens is also working on other British stores, and is linking up with established distribution and marketing companies in Singapore, Hong Kong and China.
"We are targeting the higher end of the consumer market and we hope to start supplying by the end of the year," said Sheryl.
Then there's other markets such as Scandinavia, Middle East, Japan, United States and Australia.
The Steens - Paul was a butcher and Sheryl a teacher - have travelled some distance since establishing three beehives on their section in Papamoa Beach Rd.
Paul wanted a change from managing the butcher's shop at Omanu and read up about bees - even taking a beekeeper's course at Bay of Plenty Polytechnic. At the time, kiwifruit growers needed bees to pollinate their orchards.
After a little while, the council wasn't impressed that the Steens were running a commercial operation in the back of their section at Papamoa, and they decided to move on to 0.8ha property in Reid Rd. Paul learnt the art of splitting hives and their business grew.
They established 60 hives in the Papamoa Hills and first split them into 400, then 800 and 1200, importing semen from Austria and breeding queen bees along the way.
Steens Honey now has 7000 beehives spread through Wairarapa and southern Hawke's Bay and they are moved on to manuka sites in Taupo, Taranaki, Wanganui and around the East Cape.
When they ran out of room in Reid Rd, the Steens bought a beekeeping business near Masterton in 2006 and built a new processing and storage facility on the 1.6ha property.
They now employ 15 full-time staff, four in the Tauranga head office and 11 in Masterton, and, during the extraction and packing season from August to March, the numbers increase to 35.
The Steens decided to specialise in higher-value manuka honey 18 years ago after deciding there was little profit to be gained from their clover and tawari bush honey.
Paul formed the Active Manuka Honey Industry group with three other beekeepers and Waikato University's Professor Peter Molan, who was researching the unique health properties of the honey.
The group established the UMF (Unique Manuka Factor) trademark in the mid-1990s to stop other "copycat" honey being sold as manuka.
"We wanted to change the thinking about manuka and put some science and technology into what we did," said Paul.
"Manuka was regarded as a pest and was being cut out. We paid the farmers to keep it there."
Steens Honey developed a network of manuka suppliers and now produces hundreds tonnes of manuka honey a year, depending on the season. Its first production in 1989 was three tonnes.
"I remember that as being bloody exciting," Sheryl said.
The company also developed a unique online track and trace system called Hive Tracker.
Every movement of the manuka is logged and the name of the beekeeper appears on the label of the Steens manuka honey jars.
"Consumers in England like to know where the honey comes from," said Sheryl.
"They can go to our website, type in the trace code mentioned on the label, and Google Earth takes them to the honey site.
"They can also send 'a thank you note' to the beekeeper.
"We've put in processes to make everything transparent, to focus on quality and to get the best out of each hive. No honey is more pure than straight from the comb."