New Zealand honey in Takayama
September 30, 2024
A recent trip to Takayama, Japan saw us chance upon a honey shop. While honey is an important ingredient in Japanese cooking, most of it is imported rather than locally sourced. Japan is New Zealand’s 6th largest market & 4th, for mānuka. So here’s what we noticed on our trip – this isn’t a scientific study, just observations.
We saw only one dedicated honey store in Japan and that was in Takayama. The store is part of a nationwide chain. It was a premium shop that sold, not only different types of honey from around the world, but different products using honey. This Yuzu & Honey drink was delicious! The honey that was sold was all in premium packaging & featured point of sale that sold the sizzle.
Where we saw honey in-store, Greek honey seemed to have the most shelf facings. Where we saw honey, we saw honey from Greece. We also noticed a wide range of honey varieties; not just one flavour whereas the honey we saw from New Zealand was only mānuka.
The Japanese retail honey market is cluttered with different brands so it’s really hard for a particular brand to stand out. Where we saw New Zealand honey, we noted that the manuka standard was alongside (even if the company on the standard didn’t relate to the brand on display)!
And lastly we noticed that provenance matters in the Japanese market – we noted this in food in general, and that items that were beautifully packaged & displayed were certainly commanding a premium. We saw 4 large, perfect gold kiwifruit being sold for $13.50. The mānuka standard reports we saw certainly adds to the provenance story, along with point of sale material, (like below), that Japanese consumers like.
And finally, after writing this, I found an interesting piece of research about mānuka honey in the Japanese market that was conducted in 2022. Interesting reading.
