Grown in the East Cape in New Zealand, the first place in the world to see the sun.

We harvest the leaves and twigs of wild mānuka from local farms. The crop of dried leaves and small branches is run through a chopper before being moved into large tanks and compacted by foot.

The leaves are then steam-distilled for five to six hours, during which the oil-laden vapour rises and travels through to a condenser where it cools and separates, creating a pure mānuka essential oil.

No chemicals are used in the extraction process, and care is taken to keep waste minimal — even the by-product of 15,000 litres of floral water, or hydrosol, is preserved and used to make our Alcohol Free Hand Sanitiser. It takes almost a tonne of mānuka leaves to distil approximately two litres of pure mānuka essential oil, and each carefully extracted drop is precious and powerful.

As demand increases for mānuka essential oil and mānuka honey, we cannot rely only solely on the mānuka trees that grow wild in the East Cape. In partnership with local land owners, we are developing dedicated mānuka plantations to sustainably plant more native mānuka trees. To date we have helped to sustainability plant more than 1,000,000 mānuka plants on the East Cape and more than 500,000 more are planned for 2021 to help meet future demand.

Each plantation is fully irrigated and is overseen by a dedicated plantation manager who ensures the mānuka trees grow and flourish over their 20- to 30-year life. These new plantations have been welcomed by the local community as the harvesting of mānuka has provided an economic lifeline for the East Cape:

·     Provides long term job opportunities for the community
·     Allows for the land to be used sustainably
·     Brings extra income for the local land owners