I grew up in NZ and find it hilarious when I see a tub of manuka honey in a supermarket in the US. This is the most genius marketing ripoff of all time. Most honey you could buy in NZ back then was either clover honey or manuka honey, it cost about $3 for the same amount, and there was nothing special about manuka honey. Manuka is just teatree, by the way. And all honey has the same antimicrobial properties -- it has…
Nah. It's about dihydroxyacetone and methylglyoxal, which are found in what is referred to as "active" mānuka honey, and which are not found (or at least not found in such high concentrations) in honey from other flowers. Dihydroxyacetone in mānuka honey converts to methylglyoxal over time. Not all honey from mānuka is "active", and there is an ongoing fight between NZ beekeepers and the NZ Ministry of Primary Industries about the latter's guidelines for what constitutes mānuka honey.
Some or all of these details are glossed over in the article, which is pretty low-quality for HN, but this has probably gone unnoticed because it's a long way from most readers' usual fields of expertise.
I think it is silly for people to buy expensive honey with labels claiming high antibacterial properties, high activity, etc, when there are no proven medical benefits to just eating it. On the other hand, its efficiency as a topical (iirc) antibacterial relative to other honeys is scientifically proven, but you generally can't use the off-the-shelf stuff for that no matter how strong the label says it is. However... people buy all kinds of silly things, and if there's a premium market for such things overseas, and no full-on marketing lies are being told, then I'm all for it. NZ needs a few high-value, high-scarcity exports to make up for all the thousands of tons of milk formula, etc.
I just wanted to push back on the idea that the whole thing isn't science-based at its core. It is. However, it's true that the marketing hype and shady practices (mixing mānuka honey with lower-value kānuka because the two can be very hard to distinguish in testing...) were out of control for a while there, and this has been reigned in somewhat by the MPI guidelines, even if those guidelines have created additional stress and strife for beekeepers in some cases.
edit: A very short primer on DHA and MG in mānuka honey: https://www.analytica.co.nz/Portals/0/Docs/Articles/DHA_MG_a...
edit 2: If any of you readers in the UK or US find yourselves standing in front of a whole shelf full of expensive imported New Zealand honey, try the Arataki rewarewa honey, which is from a honeysuckle-esque NZ native tree. That stuff is incredible.