Processing Manuka honey
New Zealand company Comvita is making and selling Manuka honey woundcare products. In order to meet the high safety standards that are required, the honey needs to be monitored all the way from the bee to the bandage.
How does honey heal?
All honeys have wound healing properties. They are able to kill bacteria that infect wounds and help to tissue to repair and regrow.
Get information sheet: How honey heals wounds
Medical-grade Manuka honey
Manuka honey seems to be especially powerful at helping wounds to heal. This is because of a mysterious substance called the Unique Manuka Factor. Manuka honey can be tested for its Unique Manuka Factor (UMF®) activity and given a UMF® rating, for example UMF®15+, UMF® 18+. The higher the number the greater the UMF® activity and the better the Manuka honey it is at killing bacteria. Medical-grade Manuka honey is irradiated to make it sterile it can be used for wound healing.
Get information sheet: Honeybees and Manuka trees
In order to be used in woundcare products, the honey must be made to the highest standards to ensure that the honey is clean and free of contaminants such as pesticides and microorganisms. This means that the final product is safe to use on people.
The supply chain
The process of making Manuka honey begins with bees collecting nectar from Manuka flowers during summer. Nectar is a sugary liquid secreted by flowers, which attracts insects because it is a rich source of food for them. The bees fly the nectar back to their hives and seal it into wax cells, where it ripens into honey. Manuka honey is then extracted from the honeycombs and sent in large drums to Comvita’s processing factories in Cambridge or Te Puke.
Quality checks at Comvita ensure that each step in the honey supply chain has resulted in honey which is of the highest quality, and safe for medical use.
Get video: Honey supply chain
New honey drums
As part of the safety checks, it is important that each drum used to transport Manuka honey to the factory for processing into woundcare products is brand new. This keeps everything clean and cuts out any risk of contamination.
Get video: New honey drums
Testing - and tasting - honey
Before the Manuka honey is processed into woundcare products, it has to be tested. A sample of honey is taken from each drum using a huge metal syringe. It acts just like an apple corer, and samples the honey from the bottom to the top of the barrel.
The Manuka honey samples are tested to make sure there are free of microorganisms, like yeast and bacteria. The samples are also tested for their taste, smell, texture, colour, water content and UMF activity. It’s all to check that only the best Manuka samples will be used in the woundcare products.
Get video: Honey testing
Processing the honey
If the honey passes all of these tests, it is made into batches and processed at the Comvita factory. The processing is made a lot more difficult because of another of Manuka honey’s unique properties: it is thixotropic. This means that it is quite solid, or gel-like, when kept still, but will pour when agitated or mixed.
Get video: Honey is thixo-what?
The honey needs to be kept warmed and agitated. The constant agitation overcomes honey’s thixotropic nature and allows it to go through all of the processing steps. The main step in processing is pasteurisation, where the honey is heated and cooled rapidly. This is similar to the process used to treat milk.
Making Manuka dressings
After processing, the honey is placed back into more new drums and shipped to the UK. In the UK, the Manuka honey is made into wound dressings for use worldwide.
To find out more about how the first honey wound dressings were made:
Get information sheet: From bees to bandages
