J.Friend and Co, NZ Artisan Honey

Mission Statement:

Jeremy and Sharyn met 20 years and with varied careers and 3 children in tow they decided they wanted to be there our own bosses! As Sharyn says "We started our own businesses, (2)  both started out very small and began in the garage at home!! While running our second company we had a bit to do with Manuka honey and the honey industry- both passing comment at different times that we were surprised someone was not marketing honey better but that was as far as it got at that stage!! 

Ready for a change we decided the next business we got involved in had to be something we were passionate about-with an almost obsessive interest in anything food related, (particularly me) so we started looking in this direction!

At the same time we moved from Auckland to Christchurch where our interest in honey was again ignited – driving down the country we stopped off at several road side beekeepers on the way- the further along our journey we travelled the more developed our honey idea became- by the time we reached Christchurch it was decided that our new business was going to be ‘Honey’! We then spent a good year and a half researching and eating honey!! 

We felt that New Zealand honey was massively undervalued and underrated,(the only exception being Manuka Honey). The more we looked into the honey industry the more we discovered how much value was being lost with the majority of New Zealand honey being sent off shore in bulk, much of it destined to be blended with honey from other parts of the world.

The big question for us was how to begin- with a huge variety of honey to choose from which ones should we include in our range? One thing we did know for certain was all our honey had to be certified organic! We wanted to ensure the purity of our honey and being certified organic guaranteed this, (independently audited by a third party).  We started contacting organic beekeepers throughout the country- our main criteria then and still now are we will only deal with people who share a passion for honey and for our dream!!

We were really inspired by the people we met in those early days- beekeepers who were so enthusiastic about our idea and keen to share their knowledge and time even though we had only just met! We have vivid memories of visiting areas of the country some of which we had never been to before! We loved seeing clusters of haphazardly painted beehives proudly occupying some of the most majestic locations. Talking to the beekeepers really convinced us that we were doing the right thing-some were fourth generation beekeepers whose great granddad tended their hives just as they were doing now Our journey was not all plain sailing though- we did strike a few obstacles on the way. There were the business partners who pulled out half way through who really made us question if it was such a good idea after all? Or the glass jar supplier who never returned our calls or failed to send the sample jars we requested.


The biggest setback for us at the time though was the contract honey packer we had asked to fill our honey for us, after initially seeming keen to help he decided he was too busy to take on our project! We had no alternative but like the little red hen we would have to do it all ourselves!!! In hindsight this was the best thing that could have happened because we learnt the art of producing superior honey- through trial and error we learnt the intricacies of each varietal and what was required to produce the best honey every time!

Both of us have a keen interest in where our food comes from and how and where it originated, so it went without question that our honey needed to clearly state all this information on the label. By this stage we had stock piled a fair amount of honey- (different varietals from different regions) and we set about testing each one to select the ones we wanted to include in our first release. After much debate we settled on 8 different varietals from artisan beekeepers scattered throughout the country. In order to progress further we needed to obtain market feedback and decided the best way to do this was to set up a stand at our local farmers market.


Our simple glass jars with hand written labels describing the varietal, the region, the vintage and the beekeeper were a hit. Customers made comments that our honey tasted like the honey they had when they were children. We spent three very happy months selling at the markets and learnt so much from the experience. Customers loved the fact that their jar of honey not only told them when it was harvested but also where and by whom! During this time Jeremy visited other beekeepers and began learning the art of processing honey.

We began our own honey creaming trials so the time had come to commit to leasing a building and investing in some honey processing equipment of our own. We spent hours looking for a suitable building and finally settled on a shop in a suburban retail block. Although it had been newly renovated it was obviously not purpose built for honey processing- Jeremy commented about this regularly whilst pushing drums of 300kg honey up a small incline to get it to the processing room! Jeremy spent hours perfecting his honey creaming method- phoning a beekeeper when the honey set too hard or too soft or was too aerated.

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