Disclosure: ExportX represents New Zealand manuka honey brands in the USA, Canada, UK, Germany, France, Spain and Italy, including manuka honeys from Happy Valley, Taku Honey, Melora, Wild Cape and Manukora. Like the UMF Manuka honey rating, MGS measures the levels of MGO and DHA in the honey and assigns a grade between 5+ and 30+. There are three different grades for KFactor manuka honey: While these numbers may look similar to other grading systems, they actually refer to the percentage of pollen in the honey that is Manuka pollen. After it breaks down, it loses it’s antibacterial activity. After nearly 30 years, researchers we able to identify methylglyoxal (MGO) as the active ingredient that is responsible for Manuka’s non-peroxide activity. Eco Bee Farms, Manukaguard, R. Feldt, Hoyer, Sonnentor. Third party independent testing and verification ensures the quality of the honey that’s in the bottle will match or exceed what’s on the label. KFactor is a grading system created and used exclusively by Wedderspoon. Here’s how the grading systems compare to each other: Rules of thumb for choosing a … Most premium manuka honey from New Zealand carries a UMF rating. Yep, the same stuff you put on cuts and scrapes as an antiseptic. It’s run by the Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association (UMFHA), which is a third party New Zealand organization that oversees the use of the UMF trademark and honey quality testing. UMF stands for Unique Manuka Factor and is one of the best grading systems out there. It leads one to wonder whether the numbers were chosen intentionally to mislead consumers as they resemble the numbers used in other, more meaningful grading systems. However, the UMF grading system also measures NPA (non-peroxide activity) which represents the industry’s standard phenol disinfectant. Other companies use grading systems like ‘Active’, ‘Bio Active’ or ‘Total Activity’. The MGS grading system is a trustworthy grading system that was created by the leading authority on Manuka honey. So, go for honey that has at least a 10+ rating. We’ll also let you know which grading systems you can trust and which ones are downright misleading. Glucose oxidase is an enzyme that is added to flower nectar by honey bees to break down glucose sugars. Testing for MGO levels is important as they can vary greatly – not all Manuka honey is equal. You can find UMF Manuka honey of 30+ or higher but these are rare. MGS doesn’t test specifically for the purity of the Manuka honey by looking for Leptosperin. See our lists of the Top Manuka Honeys on Amazon.com, Amazon UK and Amazon Germany. Gordana, manuka honey with MGO content of 550 mg/kg would be rated UMF 15+, provided it also contained 460mg/kg of leptosperin. This has lead to confusion for consumers that assume all Manuka honey has the powerful antimicrobial properties that Manuka has become famous for. Dr. Molan is the scientist who originally discovered the non-peroxide antibacterial activity of Manuka honey. First of all, while all honey in the hive starts with antibacterial activity, they don’t all have it once it’s in the jar. UMF also tests for the presence of leptosperin, a natural compound unique to Manuka, to assure purity of the honey. There are known issues with using pollen counts to identify Manuka honey. Avoid companies that use labels like ‘Active’ or ‘Bio Active’. Manuka honey without a true UMF or MGO rating is unlikely to be premium manuka honey and is more likely to be a blend with other types of honey. Using MGO as a grading system is a reliable way to assess the therapeutic strength of the honey. What makes methylglyoxal special is that it’s resistant to heat and it does not degrade when exposed to saliva and blood like hydrogen peroxide does making it much more effective. These labels are very misleading and are unlikely to offer any of the antibacterial benefits manuka honey is known for. It’s up to the company to test their own honey and put the results on the label. Leptosperin is the marker that confirms genuine manuka honey, identified by recent scientific research. In fact, it’s not as much a grading system so much as just stating how much methylglyoxal is in the honey. Hydrogen peroxide is very sensitive to heat. Not only does KFactor fail to measure the therapeutic quality of honey but it’s method of measuring ‘purity’ might leave you with a product that isn’t even genuine Manuka honey. What is Manuka Honey and Why is it Special. Methylglyoxal occurs naturally in Manuka honey as dihydroxyacetone (DHA), an organically occurring compound found in Manuka flower nectar, spontaneously dehydrates. The reason for this is that high levels of NPA are only found in Manuka honey. MGO is probably the most straightforward grading system. The higher the amount of Methylglyoxal in the manuka, the better is the purity and quality of the manuka. You may be familiar with the fact that honey has been used for medicinal purposes for thousands of years. See the UMF Honey Association website for the complete list. UMF is the industry standard. The concept is similar to UMF grading. For the purposes of conversion, we assume a honey’s UMF rating is generally equivalent to its non-peroxide activity measured as % phenol. Wedderspoon doesn’t offer any explanations on their website as to why the numbers 12, 16, and 22 were chosen. It’s independent tests and auditing ensure their honey’s purity and quality. You may be surprised, however, to learn that the antibacterial activity is due to hydrogen peroxide in the honey. If all you care about is the taste of Manuka honey (and it tastes wonderful) then these grading systems will serve you just fine. A score of 5+ means the antibiotic strength of the Manuka is of equivalent strength to a mixture of 5% phenol and 95% water. Honey with higher numbers has the same qualities as that with lower numbers, but is … A byproduct this interaction is hydrogen peroxide. And, while it may taste like Manuka, Kanuka honey does not have the same NPA that Manuka honey does. Both MGO and UMF are trusted Manuka honey grading systems, and both measure MGO (methylglyoxal) content. ExportX harnesses the power of online marketplaces to sell products in big export markets. The only thing to keep in mind is that there is no third party testing and verification of these claims so make sure it’s from a company you trust. This antibacterial activity, referred to as as non-peroxide activity (NPA), distinguishes Manuka from all other honeys and is why Manuka honey is so sought after. After Manuka’s unique NPA was first identified in 1981, researchers ran into issues trying to study this activity because certain batches of Manuka honey exhibited NPA while others didn’t. Many different kinds of honey have low levels of methylglyoxal that don’t provide any antibacterial benefit. It measures specifically the amount of Methylglyoxal (MGO) compound in manuka honey. A UMF rating also takes into account the honey’s concentration of DHA (dihydroxyacetone), Methylglyoxal, and Leptosperin. UMF measures levels of MGO and DHA in Manuka honey to determine its NPA which is arguably the most reliable method. Enter a manuka honey UMF rating. UMF Manuka honey is some of the most trusted Manuka honey around, and for good reason. Not all Manuka honey has non-peroxide antibacterial activity. The ExportX manuka honey UMF-MGO calculator implements a conversion formula derived from the scientific research by Adams et al. Some of these non-UMF manuka honeys show ratings on the labels such as 12, 16 or 24+ that look confusingly like UMF ratings. Enter a manuka honey MGO rating in mg/kg or ppm. Before we look at individual grading systems, we first need to take a closer look at Manuka honey and what makes it so special. There’s a mathematical relationship between a manuka honey’s concentration of methylglyoxal and its non-peroxide activity, and thus its equivalent UMF rating. It is a natural compound with antibacterial properties and is measured in the UMF and MGO grading systems. Secondly, and more importantly, in 1981 researchers from the New Zealand University of Waikato discovered that even after the hydrogen peroxide in Manuka honey was neutralized, it still exhibited strong antibacterial activity. Their results are shown in this graph. UMF is a the New Zealand UMF Honey Association quality mark encompassing the attributes of manuka honey that make it special, including its non-peroxide activity (NPA). This number correlates to the equivalent phenol strength of the honey’s antibacterial activity. The number rating on both UMF and MGO rated honey indicated the concentration of methylglyoxal content in that batch of honey. A widely accepted and comprehensive grading system is UMF™ (Unique Manuka Factor) which is overseen by the UMFHA (Unique Manuka Factor Honey Association) in New Zealand. Phenol is a common antiseptic and is often used in research as a benchmark to compare the relative strength of other antibiotic substances (like Manuka honey). Press the ‘Convert to UMF’ button to see the equivalent UMF rating based on non-peroxide activity. This means KFactor honey could be Manuka honey as easily as it could be Kanuka honey. Decades later, after Manuka’s NPA was attributed to MGO, researchers discovered that not all Manuka honey contained significant levels of MGO. While most honey contains small amounts of MGO (typically 0 to 7mg/kg), Manuka honey can contain more than 100 times the MGO found in normal honey. This is very misleading as the hydrogen peroxide antibacterial activity degrades very quickly when exposed to fluids, heat, and sunlight. UMF grades start at 5+ and go as high as 25+ and MGO starts at 30+ and goes above 800+. KFactor does not measure the antibacterial strength of the Manuka honey. Press the ‘Convert to MGO’ button to see the equivalent MGO content (mg/kg). MGO numbers can be seen typically from MGO 83+ to MGO 1000+. MGO is only used by Manuka Health New Zealand Ltd. UMF and MGO measure the strength of Manuka honey in different ways. Methylglyoxal (MGO) is one of the chemical markers of manuka honey. 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