Offers of help have been pouring in for local manuka honey factory Kiwi Honey after a fire destroyed a shed housing more than $1 million worth of stock and processing equipment.
Fire broke out at the factory shed in Longacre Rd about noon on Saturday and continued to burn until 10pm,
fuelled by the wax.
Initial examinations indicated the fire may have been started by an electrical fault.
Kiwi Honey owner Paul Sergent said yesterday he and his wife, Val, were taking stock of what was in the building at the time for the insurance inspector's visit.
"We're rebuilding. We're going to have to start from scratch."
Mr Sergent said no one was on the property when the fire started and it had taken hold before it attracted attention.
"A neighbour noticed the smoke, and he and his son managed to get into my house to find my cellphone number to call me.
"He also thought to get some of the trucks out of a nearby building."
Mr Sergent was half an hour away when he got the call.
"By the time I arrived [about 1-1.30pm] the building was mostly collapsed."
The business was just two days into extracting honey from the hive frames, which were stored in the same building.
Combined, the cost of the 70-80 tonnes of stored honey - which sells for $15 a kilo - the wax, the hive frames, the processing equipment and the building was estimated to be more than $1 million.
There was still 150 tonnes of honey left to harvest but now there was nowhere to process it, Mr Sergent said.
"Most of the honey has been produced and is sitting on hives, and we still have areas that are producing. So the honey wasn't all in the shed."
Mr Sergent said he was grateful to all those who had offered their help and support, which included other honey producers who had offered to help extract and process the honey.
