Shareholders vent anger at Comvita AGM, gasp at $1588-a-jar mānuka honey
Wednesday, 17 December 2025
Long-suffering shareholders of struggling mānuka honey producer Comvita gasped when new chief executive Karl Gradon said one customer had spent nearly $8000 at the company’s Wellness Lab in Auckland on just five jars of its newest premium honey.
Gradon, who has been in the job for just four months, was speaking at Comvita’s annual general meeting in Papamoa Beach on Wednesday.
It was a light moment in an often tense, sometimes angry, meeting in which several shareholders called for a board clear out.
Comvita is readying a recapitalisation plan to put to shareholders early next year, after the same shareholders rejected a takeover offer of 80 cents per share from Christchurch-based natural health product export business Florenz, a subsidiary of billionaire Mark Stewart’s Masthead Limited.
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Comvita’s shares were trading at just over 52c on Wednesday, down from $2.25 two years ago, reflecting the company’s struggles.
Gradon sought to deliver an upbeat message to shareholders, while acknowledging Comvita’s poor past performance.
He hailed Comvita’s newest premium honey sourced exclusively from the company’s own mānuka cultivars planted on Manawaimai Station near Whanganui.
“Last week, one customer purchased five jars at once from our Wellness Lab in Auckland,” Gradon said.
“It retails for over NZ$1588 a jar,” he said.
Chairperson Bridget Coates indicated details of the recapitalisation, which was likely to see an injection of capital from both existing shareholders and new shareholders, would be revealed early next year.
“We anticipate investors will want to understand the first-half trading prior to participating in any capital raise process,” she said.
The first half of Comvita’s financial year ended on December 31, and the numbers would be available in the second half of February, she said.
The board expected Comvita to return to profit in the current 2025/26 financial year, Coates said, thanks to a turnaround plan put in place several years ago.
Comvita ran into trouble as a result of weak prices thanks to a global glut of mānuka honey, and because of its high costs, poor inventory management, under-performing investments and high levels of borrowing.
Under sometimes angry questioning, Coates told shareholders she was a shareholder in Comvita.
“We all have suffered very badly,” she said, her voice sometimes hoarse with emotion.
She said the board was incredibly sorry for what had happened.
Gradon told shareholders: “The leadership team and I have a very clear mandate. We need to fix what is not working at Comvita, protect what is strong, and lift performance.”
Gradon said: “Our challenges are now well understood. We have not adapted fast enough to shifts in market and industry dynamics, and this has impacted both our competitive position and our financial performance.”
But he said: “We must not lose sight of our strengths. Comvita is the global number one mānuka brand, and we have the most extensive distribution reach in the category, particularly across Asia.”
Comvita now had 7900 retailers around the world, including 202 Comvita-branded stores, and “store-instores” in Asia, selling its honeys, which are sought after by people seeking improvements in their health.
But Gradon signalled under-performing stores could face the chop.
“North America is the fastest growing mānuka honey market and a must win market for Comvita,” he said.
But he said the company had work to do to combat intensifying competition in online channels such as Amazon.
Some shareholders expressed their anger at Comvita’s poor historic performance, and several wanted to see a board clear out.
One felt an apology was due to shareholders, who felt the board had been wrong to recommend shareholders accept Florenz’s “low-ball” offer.
“We felt as if we were being sold down the river by the directors,” the shareholder said.
“We need a refreshed board to take us forward,” he said, to some clapping.
Coates, who has been on the board since October 2021, said: “The company is by no means out of the woods yet.”
She said it was dependent on its bankers, and they were looking to the current board to deliver the recapitalisation.
“That means the existing people on the board, and the existing management team,” she said.
“It would be extremely risky and detrimental to the company for the board to take any other track at the moment other than maintain the course of action that we are on,” she said.
“You might have a different point of view, but our bankers do not. They are committed to this team, and the course of action we have set,” she said.
Continuity of the board was essential, Coates said.
Comvita acknowledged it had work to do to rebuild trust among shareholders and beekeepers.