The State of Raw Honey 2026
We analyzed every honey in the Raw Honey Guide catalog — 210 jars, 16 countries, 168 brands, 17 floral sources. Here's what the numbers actually say about how raw honey is priced, sourced, and certified in 2026.
Data: /open-data · Method: /learn/methodology · Updated · ~7 min read
Manuka costs roughly 4× the catalog average — every other variety competes within a tight $14–$33 band
Average mid-jar price by floral source. The chart below tells the same story everyone in the honey business already knows but rarely sees laid out: Manuka is its own category. Strip it out and 16 of the remaining 17 sources fall inside a single ~$20 spread, with clover the bargain anchor and tupelo the genuine domestic premium.
Bar = avg of (priceMin + priceMax) / 2 across all jars of that floral source. Floral sources with fewer than 5 listings are excluded.
If you're spending more than ~$25 on a non-Manuka jar, you are paying for one of three things: geographic provenance (Tasmanian leatherwood, Greek thyme), single-apiary scarcity, or premium packaging. None of those are bad — but knowing that is why this chart is worth $30 in avoided impulse buys.
Manuka pricing is almost perfectly linear in MGO — every 100 MGO adds about $9.50 to the jar
Plotting MGO rating against jar price for the 13 Manuka honeys with both values declared reveals a remarkably tight relationship. There's a small infused / creamed premium at the low end, but past MGO 250 the price climbs in a near-straight line all the way to the MGO 1200 outlier at $140.
Each dot is a Manuka honey from the catalog (n=13 with both MGO and price declared). Dashed line is the rough fit — every additional 100 MGO adds about $9.50 to the jar price.
UMF and MGO measure the same underlying compound (methylglyoxal). Approximate conversions in our catalog: UMF 5+ ≈ MGO 83, UMF 10+ ≈ MGO 263, UMF 15+ ≈ MGO 514, UMF 20+ ≈ MGO 829, UMF 25+ ≈ MGO 1200.
For everyday eating, MGO 100–263 is the sweet spot — beyond MGO 400 you're paying for clinical-grade antibacterial activity that's better used topically (oral health, minor wound care) than spread on toast.
New Zealand sells at 2.7× the price of the USA — but the gap is almost entirely Manuka
Average jar price by country of origin. New Zealand's $50.42 average is misleading on first glance: 18 of its 22 listings are Manuka. The non-Manuka NZ honeys (clover, rewarewa) sell within a few dollars of comparable U.S. wildflower honey. Western European honeys cluster in the low-$20s — the PDO/PGI premium is real but small. Latin American honey is the catalog's clearest value play.
Catalog share by origin
Where the 210 jars come from — bee colonies follow trade flows.
168 brands for 210 jars — honey is one of the most fragmented categories in the grocery store
No brand in the catalog holds more than 6 listings. The largest — Savannah Bee Company — sits at about 3% share. Below the top 9 it's almost entirely a long tail of single-product regional beekeepers and country-specific exporters. Compare that to coffee or olive oil where five brands often dominate 70%+ of supermarket shelf space.
Top 9 brands by listing count
Savannah Bee Company holds 6 listings out of 210. No other category looks like this.
~143 of 168 brands appear exactly once — the long tail of single-apiary producers, family farms, and small importers.
Brand recognition is a weaker signal in honey than almost anywhere else in the grocery store. A beekeeper you've never heard of is the rule, not the exception. Look at floral source, harvest date, and provenance instead — those move the quality needle, brand name does not.
Only 6.2% of the catalog is USDA Organic — and that number reflects regulation, not quality
The U.S. has never finalized a federal organic standard for honey. Domestic raw beekeepers can meet every meaningful organic practice (no antibiotics, pollinator-friendly forage radius, no synthetic comb foundation) and still be unable to certify because the program doesn't exist for them. Imported honey from countries with established organic programs makes up most of the certified jars in our catalog.
Type breakdown
How the catalog splits across processing styles — raw dominates because raw is what we curate.
Five practical takeaways from the 2026 numbers
For everyday raw honey, $14–$22 buys you almost everything good.
16 of 17 floral sources average within that range. Above $25 you're paying for Manuka, scarcity, or packaging — make sure you actually want one of those.
Pick the lowest MGO that does the job.
MGO 100–263 for daily eating. MGO 400+ only if you're using it topically or for clinical purposes. Every 100 MGO costs ~$9.50.
Latin American & Eastern European raw honey is the hidden value play.
Brazil, Mexico, and Hungary all average under $19 — frequently for floral sources Western Europe charges $25+ for.
Don't anchor on brand. The category is too fragmented for that to be a reliable signal.
85% of brands have just one listing. Floral source, harvest date, and proximity to the apiary are stronger signals.
Absence of "organic" is not absence of quality — especially for U.S.-raised honey.
Federal organic standards for honey don't exist in the U.S., so the best small-batch domestic beekeepers physically cannot certify. For raw honey from a known producer, ask about treatment practices and forage radius — that's worth more than a label.
Methodology & caveats
- Source data:
honeys.jsonin the Raw Honey Guide repository, snapshot dated April 2026 (n=210). Available as JSON or CSV at /open-data. - "Average jar price" uses the mid-point of each listing's
priceMin/priceMaxretail range (USD). When only one bound is present, that bound is used. - Floral sources with fewer than 5 listings are excluded from the price chart to avoid noise from thin samples; origins with fewer than 3 listings are excluded.
- This is a curated catalog, not a representative random sample of every honey on Earth — it intentionally over-indexes on raw, single-source, and specialty honey because that's what we research and recommend.
- Brand share, certification share, and type share are descriptive of the catalog only and should not be read as global market share.
Raw Honey Guide Editorial Team
Reviewed by certified beekeepers and apiculture specialists. Our editorial team consults with professional beekeepers, food scientists, and registered dietitians to ensure accuracy. Health claims are cited against peer-reviewed literature from Cochrane, JAFC, BMJ, and Nutrients.