Our history

Our history

The Pursuit of Happiness. The heart of our hive.

Our story began in 1959, when Ben and Dot Rawnsley (our brands founder) were pioneering Apitherapy in New Zealand. By 1975 the brand Happy Valley was more than just filling your own jar at Bens farm in a little known place called Happy Valley in Auckland. Ben and Dot developed a range of products using by-products from the hive. Many of the same Api-nutrition products exist in our range today. Our first retail store was opened where customers could come and fill their own jar of honey and find out about the power of nature.

By 1990 Happy Valley harvested the first commercial quantities of Fresh Royal Jelly in New Zealand — perfecting the process to what it is today.

Six decades later, our family has grown.

Happy Valley has grown. But our goal is same: every day, we still go out on a limb to pursue happiness, in the form of real mānuka honey honey and hive based well-being products — the best New Zealand has to offer.

Our people

Mark Harvey

Group CEO

Mark has been steering the hive since 2009. A 4th generation kiwi with a passion for entrepreneurial business, being involved in start-ups and small businesses across a multiple of industries. Mark has been instrumental in bring together all companies that make up the Melita Group today and is a CEO that’s involved in all areas of our company and well respected. A lover of spreadsheets, sport and working outside on his lifestyle property. Happiest when away from phones and in the Greek Islands.

Favourite product

Rewarewa Honey – for its caramel taste

Interesting fact

At 10 years old he ran 10kms each way to get to rugby training, all so he could play for the best team in the district – but to get there on time he had to sneak out of school early.

Narissa Harvey

GM Brands & Consumer

Joining the company in 2013, Narissa brings with her a wealth of experience working in Sales & brand Management across FMCG and luxury goods in multi-national companies both her in NZ and Internationally. Mother to 1 son, and a Dog named Larry. Most happiest when with her Family and friends laughing and dreams of returning to Tulum in Mexico and getting Croatia off the bucket list.

Favourite product

Honeycomb - on a cheese platter with blue cheese and Quince paste (thank her later) Royal Skin night Cream, and Propolis & Manuka Oil for the First Aid Kit.

Interesting fact

She has a sister born on the same day, but they are not twins as they are 5 years apart - and it runs in the family

Alesha Parkes

Retail, Admin & Contracts Manager

For Alesha, being part of the Happy Valley family means being able to work alongside her actual family as her husband Jason is also a valuable member of the team. Before arriving at Happy Valley, Alesha worked for another family business helping with race horses and discovered our company when working next door at the Famous Strawberry Shack. When not working with bees, Alesha’s passion for animals continues in her home life with horses which she has always ridden and is happiest when on the back of one. In between being a busy working mum, she indulges in netball, water sports, spending time with family and friends and traveling to Europe or getting away to New Zealand’s own Queenstown.

Favourite Product

For Alesha, choosing just one product is difficult as she uses so many. She uses Bee Pollen to keep her immune system in check and energy levels up throughout winter, she always has Manuka Oil in her first aid kit to use on both two-legged and four-legged family members and loves the Royal Skin Range. She is also a big fan of the Propolis Throat Spray.

Interesting fact

Alesha was born on the same day as her sister... but they’re not twins! The coincidence runs in her family.

Our Commitment to Sustainability + Authenticity

At Happy Valley, we’re not just about producing premium Mānuka honey—we’re dedicated to protecting the environment, supporting our bees, and ensuring the highest quality with every jar. Through ethical beekeeping, responsible land management, and careful production methods, we create Mānuka honey that you can feel good about choosing.

Land Care and Precision

We believe the quality of our honey starts from the ground up. That’s why we conduct regular soil testing and select pristine, pesticide-free sites for our Mānuka trees. By maintaining and regenerating native Mānuka forests, we create balanced ecosystems that benefit not only our bees but also the surrounding environment. These organic growing practices ensure our trees thrive in the cleanest soils possible, producing nectar that becomes the foundation of superior honey.

Ethical Beekeeping Practices

Bees are at the heart of what we do:

Hive Oversight: We own and maintain our hives, giving us full control over how they’re managed. This includes daily monitoring of hive health and nutrition to keep our colonies strong and resilient.
Protecting Bee Populations: Our hives are placed strategically to avoid overcrowding, allowing bees plenty of space to forage freely. This reduces stress on their populations and supports their wellbeing.
Transparency & Traceability: From hive to jar, every step is tracked with precision. This guarantees total transparency of the bees’ incredible work and ensures our customers experience pure, unadulterated honey.

The Art of Triple-Churning for Perfection

Happy Valley honey isn’t just honey. It’s crafted with love and precision through our exclusive triple-churning process:

Silky Smooth Texture: Raw Mānuka honey can sometimes feel grainy, but our process ensures a creamy, almost velvety consistency that’s unparalleled.
Enhanced Flavour: Triple churning refines the natural toffee and caramel notes of Mānuka honey, softening any bitterness and creating a rich yet mellow taste.
Culinary Experience: The result is honey that transforms everything it touches, whether it’s your morning tea, toast, or favourite recipes. Taste the depth, complexity, and cool, smooth mouthfeel in every spoonful.

Production You Can Trust

Everything about our honey production happens in-house at our New Zealand-based facilities:

Full Control: From honey extraction to the processing and packaging stages, we handle it all. This ensures we meet the highest quality standards, protecting the integrity and flavour of our Mānuka honey.
Globally Recognised Accreditation: Our facilities hold certifications that testify to the rigorous processes we follow, reinforcing the premium nature of what we offer.

UMF Certification & Independent Testing

When you see the UMF® (Unique Mānuka Factor) rating on our jars, you can trust that you’re getting authentic, high-quality Mānuka honey:

Proven Purity: Every batch is tested for UMF factors like MGO (Methylglyoxal), ensuring it meets the highest standards.
Consumer Confidence: Our membership in the UMF Association means transparency and a commitment to producing honey that’s verified for its strength, quality, and origins.
More Than a Label: From UMF 5+ to UMF 24+, you can select the grade that best suits your lifestyle, knowing each jar delivers the natural characteristics Mānuka honey is celebrated for.

Leading the Way in Sustainable Practices

We’re not just here to produce extraordinary honey—we’re on a mission to nurture the planet:

Eco-Friendly Packaging: Our jars are recyclable and designed to minimise waste, reducing our footprint without compromising quality.
Energy-Conscious Production: We use sustainable energy practices in our facilities, aiming to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and keep production as environmentally friendly as possible.
Community-Centred Approach: By fostering strong relationships with local communities, we support New Zealand’s heritage and the ongoing preservation of native Mānuka forests.

Hive health

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Our Bee Keeping Team at NZ Honey Group (our parent company) look after 6,000 + hives across the natural and native forests and fields throughout the New Zealand countryside. Our team of 30 beekeepers are busy maintaining the hives throughout the winter months and the hives health is the first and most important art of a sustainable company and creating and harvesting quality pure honey.

The bee keepers use technology and time aged traditions in order to monitor bee health. Our honey is completely traceable back to source. Our beekeeping team track information at the hive and site level, and it is all recorded and noted information that is collected include:

— Maintaining Hive components
— Tracking Field activities
— Disease monitoring Inventory control
— Genetics – optimising our Bee colonies and breeding programs
— Protecting the hives and bees from adverse weather

Independent testing & research

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We conduct numerous tests from at the hive through to extraction and we continually test our drums to monitor the honeys quality. All of our tests are conducted with independent laboratory tests and kept in our database and we use these to carefully plan and match our honey to our global markets and mix consistent quality batches.

We also work closely with our independent labs to monitor best practices and the latest research and scientific testing as well as being members of UMF® - the leading research body on Manuka honey.

Testing includes:

UMF Testing

In order to be graded under UMF®, Happy Valley test for Mānuka markers across 4 different spectrums, including the recently discovered Leptosperin. Leptosperin is an abundant, stable, and scientifically researched marker that is unique to Mānuka honey in NZ. This clearly differentiates UMF graded honey as a truly authentic Mānuka honey.

Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF)

Hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF) is a break-down product of fructose (one of the main sugars in honey), it forms slowly during storage and very quickly when honey is heated. The international food standards requires that the hydroxymethylfurfural content of honey after processing and/or blending shall not be more than 40 mg/kg.

Methylglyoxal (MGO)

MGO is the compound responsible for the unique properties of Mānuka honey and forms the basis of the UMF grading system.

Leptosperin

Leptosperin is also found in Mānuka nectar and due to its unique abundance in Mānuka honey has been identified as the most discerning characteristic to distinguish Mānuka honey from other honey types.

DHA

DHA is in the nectar of Manuka flowers and converts into MGO once the bees gather the nectar and turn it into honey.

Factory accreditation

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We have a specialist Honey Packing facility in Hawkes Bay New Zealand, We have over 20 years’ experience packing New Zealand Honey and alongside that our Factory has several accreditations including SQF that can assure you the products we are packing is of the highest quality and standard.

We use gentle Production methods that enable us to classify our honey as Raw, as we only gently heat our honey through the production process to the temperatures of the natural hive helping to protect and nurture the honey just as nature intended.

We have the below accreditations:

A Grade Food

RMP Accredited

SQF Accredited

RMP code: MAP1

Gentle processing

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We take great care to ensure that we don't heat our honey above the antural tempertures of the hive, and therfore elevating the HMF levels.

When we process the honey in our factory we gently warm the honey up so the honey can be worked with and transferred in to the VATS. From there a process of using a seed starter (or creamed honey) is used where the honey is gently warmed and cooled while stirring to thicken and cream the batch.

Quality, Purity and Provence Assurance

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All of our honey is traceable back to the hive, so we can assure you of the origin of the honey – and we use Oaye software to show you our customers of the process we undergo to ensure our honey meets Quality Purity and Provence standards.

Carry the UMF Quality Trademark Carry the Fernmark – to provide assurance it’s a NZ Made product Oaye Software tracks your batch of honey back to the source of the honey authenticating the provenance of your honey.

Environment

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The environment impacts the quality of honey — and while many of these are natural elements and ultimately not controlled by ourselves or our bee keepers — but rather Mother Nature. Our Beekeepers work tirelessly to ensure the environmental factors are controlled and monitored — to find out more head to our NZ Honey Group website: www.nzhoneygroup.com

Our land & bees

Honey is a natural product created by the joining of nature and it’s environment, making the land and bees our most precious resource.

Our Bee Keeping team consists of over 30 staff who are out in the field daily and the caretakers of our relationship with the land and the bees. They operate out of the Hawkes Bay where we have a state of the art extraction facility and process our honey from across New Zealand.

Melita Beekeeping manage the relationships we have with our group owned land, our land partners and responsible for the hive management.

To find out more about the importance of the land and our bees to our process, visit www.nzhoneygroup.com

Our process

Our products are genuine and authentic. Unlike others who outsource parts of their honey production, we control every aspect—from the land and bees to the final jar. Our triple-churned Mānuka honey, coupled with a commitment to sustainability and authenticity, ensures you’re receiving a product from a trusted source.

We manage the full process, ensuring we know the quality of our product from the beginning the the end. We own our own land and Mānuka plantations, with 30 Bee Keepers out in the field placing our hives in natural environments. Extraction and Production teams are based in our own factory. We even package your honey up ourselves, selling it to you in our retail stores or sending it to arrive on your doorstep. We do it all in-house with our team.

Land

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No. Honey is one of the very few food sources that does not spoil. However, it does need to be stored correctly otherwise you will find your honey returning to its natural state — where it goes lumpy and surgery. This is perfectly normal, as when it’s in the hive it goes from liquid to thick and sugary depending on the temperature.

We recommend storing your honey under 19.5 degrees Celsius in a cool dark place.
All of our products have a Best Before date printed as we have to comply with Food Labelling guidelines. In the case of our UMF Mānuka range, the BB date is to ensure your honey still meets the claims on pack by the BB date.

All of our well-being products have a BB date and we recommend you consume by that date for maximum effectiveness.

All of our skincare has a 12 months after opening BB date- so we recommend that once the product is opened, it is used within 12 months.

Our happy bees

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No. Honey is one of the very few food sources that does not spoil. However, it does need to be stored correctly otherwise you will find your honey returning to its natural state — where it goes lumpy and surgery. This is perfectly normal, as when it’s in the hive it goes from liquid to thick and sugary depending on the temperature.

We recommend storing your honey under 19.5 degrees Celsius in a cool dark place.
All of our products have a Best Before date printed as we have to comply with Food Labelling guidelines. In the case of our UMF Mānuka range, the BB date is to ensure your honey still meets the claims on pack by the BB date.

All of our well-being products have a BB date and we recommend you consume by that date for maximum effectiveness.

All of our skincare has a 12 months after opening BB date- so we recommend that once the product is opened, it is used within 12 months.

Sustainable happiness

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No. Honey is one of the very few food sources that does not spoil. However, it does need to be stored correctly otherwise you will find your honey returning to its natural state — where it goes lumpy and surgery. This is perfectly normal, as when it’s in the hive it goes from liquid to thick and sugary depending on the temperature.

We recommend storing your honey under 19.5 degrees Celsius in a cool dark place.
All of our products have a Best Before date printed as we have to comply with Food Labelling guidelines. In the case of our UMF Mānuka range, the BB date is to ensure your honey still meets the claims on pack by the BB date.

All of our well-being products have a BB date and we recommend you consume by that date for maximum effectiveness.

All of our skincare has a 12 months after opening BB date- so we recommend that once the product is opened, it is used within 12 months.

Extraction process

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No. Honey is one of the very few food sources that does not spoil. However, it does need to be stored correctly otherwise you will find your honey returning to its natural state — where it goes lumpy and surgery. This is perfectly normal, as when it’s in the hive it goes from liquid to thick and sugary depending on the temperature.

We recommend storing your honey under 19.5 degrees Celsius in a cool dark place.
All of our products have a Best Before date printed as we have to comply with Food Labelling guidelines. In the case of our UMF Mānuka range, the BB date is to ensure your honey still meets the claims on pack by the BB date.

All of our well-being products have a BB date and we recommend you consume by that date for maximum effectiveness.

All of our skincare has a 12 months after opening BB date- so we recommend that once the product is opened, it is used within 12 months.

Production process

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No. Honey is one of the very few food sources that does not spoil. However, it does need to be stored correctly otherwise you will find your honey returning to its natural state — where it goes lumpy and surgery. This is perfectly normal, as when it’s in the hive it goes from liquid to thick and sugary depending on the temperature.

We recommend storing your honey under 19.5 degrees Celsius in a cool dark place.
All of our products have a Best Before date printed as we have to comply with Food Labelling guidelines. In the case of our UMF Mānuka range, the BB date is to ensure your honey still meets the claims on pack by the BB date.

All of our well-being products have a BB date and we recommend you consume by that date for maximum effectiveness.

All of our skincare has a 12 months after opening BB date- so we recommend that once the product is opened, it is used within 12 months.

Getting our product to the customer

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No. Honey is one of the very few food sources that does not spoil. However, it does need to be stored correctly otherwise you will find your honey returning to its natural state — where it goes lumpy and surgery. This is perfectly normal, as when it’s in the hive it goes from liquid to thick and sugary depending on the temperature.

We recommend storing your honey under 19.5 degrees Celsius in a cool dark place.
All of our products have a Best Before date printed as we have to comply with Food Labelling guidelines. In the case of our UMF Mānuka range, the BB date is to ensure your honey still meets the claims on pack by the BB date.

All of our well-being products have a BB date and we recommend you consume by that date for maximum effectiveness.

All of our skincare has a 12 months after opening BB date- so we recommend that once the product is opened, it is used within 12 months.

Our partnerships

UMF Association — Licence #2024

As a UMF Member we uphold the quality measures and testing regimes required to be use the premium quality and grading system on our Manuka Products. Happy Valley pays an annual licence fees and levys that helps fund the work of the association.