Global Honey Market Size, Share, Analysis, Forecast: By Processing: Organic, Conventional; By Application: Food and Beverage, Personal Care and Cosmetics, Pharmaceuticals, Others; By Distribution Channels: Business to Business, Business to Consumer; Regional Analysis; Market Dynamics: SWOT Analysis; Competitive Landscape; 2023-2028

Global Honey Market Outlook

Buoyed by desperate search for natural products having immunity enhancing benefits by general masses, global honey market received a substantive boost. The market attained a production volume of 1.77 million tons in 2021 and is likely to witness robust demand in the coming years as well due to its extensive benefits.

Honey is extensively used as an immunity enhancer and the consumption and sale of honey saw a sharp upward trend during the historical period. The rising general awareness about the health benefits and medicinal properties of honey is expected to continue as one of the major growth drivers for the global honey market. Its therapeutic properties have also been known to the mankind since time immemorial.

The global honey market is likely to be led by the rising demand from the Asia Pacific regions. Asia Pacific continues to be the largest and fastest growing honey market and the growth is expected to be quite robust in the coming years as well. Both China and India, the two largest global players in the region, continue to show great promise in honey production and marketing.

For example, in India, Dabur Honey, a product of the FMCG major Dabur India, recorded an impressive sale of INR 5 billion (USD 63.3 million). Countries in the Asia Pacific region are also not immune from threat to bee population from climate change, indiscriminate use of pesticides, and biodiversity loss. Timely action in this regard will be very much required on their part in order to preserve the bee population.

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Another interesting development in the recent times has been the fight between honey producers of Australia and New Zealand over ‘Manuka’ trademark. Manuka honey is obtained from bees, which feed on the Leptospermum scoparium plant, grown in both New Zealand and Australia. The honey enjoys very high reputation for its medicinal properties and commands very high price in the global market.

While New Zealand claims monopoly over the trademark ‘Manuka’, Australia has all along been disputing the claim. In view of the dispute, the United Kingdom Intellectual Property Office rejected the application of the Manuka Honey Appellation Society, New Zealand, for registration of ‘Manuka’ trademark in its name. The United States has also rejected the claim earlier.

Capilano Honey Limited of Australia has launched a new honey brand called ‘The Honey Collective’. It is a cheaper variety of honey that has been sourced from New Zealand and targets price conscious customers.

Key Market Trends Include Rising Awareness, Growing Use in Different Industries, and Rising Government Initiatives

Honey is marketed as a natural sweetener, which finds its domestic use as a spread on bread, or as a sweetener in tea, in cooking, or baking. It is also used commercially as a sweetener in making desserts. Honey is also used as principal ingredient in producing Mead, an alcoholic beverage.

Rising Awareness of the Benefits of the Product

Rising awareness of the benefits of honey and the adverse side effect of industrially produced cane sugar and the consequent growing preference for natural sweetener is likely to have a salutary effect on the growth of global honey market. Due to the adverse effects of the pandemic, there was a renewed awareness of health and medicinal benefits of honey, particularly as an immunity enhancer. It is promoting regular use of honey as a part of daily food. This awareness is likely to act as a key driver for market growth.

Rising Use as a Home Remedy

Honey has been quite popular as a part of home remedies for many common health problems like cough and cold, foot sores in diabetic people, cold sores, sores and ulcers in mouth and gums caused by herpes virus, among others. Also, there are large number of Ayurvedic medicines that use honey as ingredient.

Rising Uses in Medicines

Honey finds its use in many Allopathic medicines. Honey preparations are used for treating burns, cough, cold, and dry eyes, among other problems. Melcare Biomedical is an Australian company that has been specialising in medicines using therapeutic benefits of honey. It has developed many medicines for treating symptoms of common cold, eye care, wound and skin care, and nasal care. There has been an increased preference for medicines using natural products, therapeutic use of honey is likely to be on a consistent growth path and act as a key driver.

Increased Use in Personal Care Products

Use of honey in various beauty and body care products is gaining significant traction. Such products include honey-based face masks, face moisturisers, lip balms, body wash, hand and body lotions, shampoos, and moisturising wipes, among others. Such products are marketed under brands like Kara, Palmer’s, The Body Shop, Vaadi Herbals, VLCC, Biotique, Innisfree, and Dear Packers, among others. There is a discernible rising trend towards use of beauty products based on natural ingredients in preference to industrially manufactured chemicals.

A discerning trend in the global honey market is the faster growth of organic honey segment vis-a-vis the entire honey market. It is because of general preference for organic products among the upper crust of consumers, who can afford higher prices of organic products and among those who are environmentally more conscious. As such consciousness will keep on growing, the organic honey segment needs to be keenly observed.

Rising Initiatives and Programs by Different Governments

There is a growing realisation all over the world regarding role played by bees in human nutrition through pollination. Flowers and food crops depend on pollination and any threat to bees is a threat to global food security and nutrition. This realisation will propel governments towards affirmative action for protecting bees from extinction.

In India, one such initiative by the Central Government is National Honey and Beekeeping Mission, which is a part of an ambitious vision of the government called ‘Sweet revolution that aims at promoting apiculture for accelerating the production of quality honey and other related products. In China, there are government projects for providing bee habitat at a large scale. Such initiatives by governments will help in protecting and expanding bee habitat and are likely to be growth drivers.

The report aims at analysing the impact of various growth drivers, including the segments and subsegments within them, to assess their impact on the growth of global honey market, separately as well as cumulatively.

Rising Awareness and Higher Investments to Offer Lucrative Opportunities to the Market

Rising Awareness about the Benefits to Garner More Consumers

Sharp increase in import could be attributed to higher consumption during peak pandemic period due to increase in general awareness about honey as a natural immunity enhancer. The imprint of this awareness is likely to continue in the post pandemic phase as well, giving an upward push to the global honey market. Apart from this, other growth drivers discussed above will also act cumulatively to give fillip to the market globally.

Better Organisation of the Sector and Rising Investments

Organic honey commands much higher price and is likely to offer relatively better opportunities for growth. Beekeepers form the core of the honey production, but they do not constitute an organized sector. Beekeeping is mostly a cottage and micro entrepreneurial activity but the rising demand for honey is necessitating higher production of good quality honey. This, in turn, provides vast opportunities for big investors for investing in upscaling and organising beekeeping as an organised, technology driven, commercial activity at lower cost. It is certainly an area of interest for entrepreneurs.

The report examines in detail, various opportunities that are coming in the way of beekeepers, companies in the business of production and marketing of honey and honey-based products, exporters, and prospective investors in the business.

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Climate Change, Availability of Duplicate Honey, High Prices of Organic Honey, and Decreasing Productivity to Pose as Major Challenges for the Market

Climate Change

While the demand side of the global honey market is in the upbeat mode; the supply side is facing certain challenges. One such challenge is posed by the increased threat to bee colonies in various parts of the World due to cumulative effect of climate change, indiscriminate use of pesticides, attacks by pests and biodiversity loss. Silver lining is that various governments and multilateral organisations like Food and Agriculture Organization are trying to combat these challenges and mulling over strategies to meet it.

Rising Availability of Duplicate Honey

Another major challenge is posed by duplicate honey that is literally flooding the market. It is believed that honey is the third most faked food in the world after milk and olive oil. This fake honey is usually a highly processed form of a mixture of small quantity of real honey with a low-cost sugary syrup derived from corn, rice, and sugarcane, among others. It offers none of the health benefits of real honey but all the disadvantages that can be associated with sugar.

Faking of honey has achieved a very high level of adulteration and it is usually difficult tell real honey from its fake counterpart without advanced chemical analysis. Unfortunately, even reputed brands are also indulging in such nefarious activities.

Higher Prices of Organic Honey

Organic honey is extremely expensive as compared to the fake ones, which makes it less affordable to the population. Due to price advantage that fake honey enjoys over the real one, it has the capacity to make survival of real honey extremely difficult. It has the potential to create crisis of credibility among consumers, who cannot differentiate between real and fake honey and may begin to distrust both. Fake honey may not cause much damage in the short term, but it is a real challenge to the survival of real honey in the long run. Major brands will have to continuously strive for protecting the credibility of their brands and earning and retaining the confidence of consumers and other stake holders.

Disrupted Production to Hinder the Market Growth

As per the recent reports from Canada, beekeepers have been facing serious problems. In Alberta, cold weather wiped out hundreds of honeybee colonies and in Saskatchewan, beekeepers reported higher than usual mortality rates among bees during the current year, which significantly affected the production volume in the region.

Recent reports regarding honey production have not been very encouraging from France as well. Last year, due to cold, wet, and windy conditions, many regions of the country suffered from frost, and it adversely affected honey production. Even otherwise, the country has seen consistent decline in honey production for many years, except in 2014 and 2020.

News from Zimbabwe is also alarming. Thanks to climate change, indiscriminate use of pesticides, habitat loss and poor bee colony management, honeybees in the country are being gradually pushed to extinction. Steps are afoot to reverse the trend.

Zimbabwe may not be alone. Last year, Jose Graziano da Silva, former Director General of the Food and Agriculture Organization had warned the world that bees were facing existential threat due to cumulative effect of climate change, indiscriminate use of pesticides and biodiversity loss. May 20 is observed every year as the World Bee Day and in view of the increasing level of threat to bees, theme of the Day in 2022 was “Dangers to Honeybees and Benefits from Honeybees”.

Market Analysis

Based on processing, the market can be divided into organic and conventional. It finds applications in pharmaceuticals, food and beverage, personal care and cosmetics, among others. The distribution channels can be divided into Business to Business and Business to Consumer. The latter can be divided into hypermarkets and supermarkets, convenience stores, and online, among others.

Based on region, the market can be categorised into North America, Europe, Asia Pacific, Latin America, Middle East and Africa.

The key players in the market can be categorised into the following:

• Barkman Honey, LLC

• Dabur India Ltd

• Capilano Honey Limited

• African Bronze Honey Company

• New Zealand Honey Co.

• Pastili Limited

• Others

Market Breakup by Processing

Honey market can be divided into two categories on the basis of processing, that is, organic honey and conventional honey. Current trends indicate that organic honey market is growing much faster than the conventional honey market because of the increasing preference for organic products, particularly among more affluent sections of the populace.

Market Breakup by Application

Honey finds extensive application as a sweetener in food and beverages industry, direct use by consumers as immunity enhancer and home remedy, uses as ingredient in pharma industry, and use as ingredient in beauty care products. Honey is widely being used in the personal care industry due to its therapeutic effects on both skin and hair. It is a natural antioxidant which helps in treating dry and inflamed skin.

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Competitive Landscape

New Zealand Honey Co.- New Zealand Honey Company is a New Zealand based venture, which is known for the word famous Manuka honey. It was established in 2006 and has been growing at a very fast pace.

Barkman Honey, LLC- It is a US based honey company, which was founded in 1960 and is based in Kansas, United States. Its flagship brand is Busy Bee.

Dabur India Ltd- It is essentially an India based multinational FMCG company that had begun as an enterprise producing   indigenous medicines. It diversified itself in a wide range of FMCG products. Dabur Honey is one of its major offerings.

Other key players in the market include Capilano Honey Limited, African Bronze Honey Company, and Pastili Limited, among others.

Key Highlights of the Report

*At Expert Market Research, we strive to always give you current and accurate information. The numbers depicted in the description are indicative and may differ from the actual numbers in the final EMR report.