Kiwi retailer fined for false honey claim

A New Zealand company has been fined for making false representations about the properties of its honey. Tomorrow Dream Line Limited, a tourist shop, claimed to be selling UMF (Unique Manuka Factor) manuka honey and could not justify its claims. Two company directors were fined a total of NZ$35,000 (about $30,000).

The judge added an extra sting: he said that Mr Kim showed “extraordinary degree of deceptiveness, dishonesty and fundamental absence of good old integrity”. Mr Kim was “overtly ripping off the public by being as dishonest as anyone” he had met in this area.

UMF honey can sell for up to ten times the price of other honeys.