Dannevirke business selling manuka honey at Harrods for $5000 a jar

The world's rarest and most expensive honey happens to come from New Zealand and it's just got even rarer and pricier.

A Dannevirke business is reaping the benefits of its prized manuka honey which is flying off the shelves at Harrods for nearly $5000 a jar.

It might seem a little over the top for a beekeeping mission but the result is well and truly worth the effort.

"As far as we're aware it's the highest grade manuka honey that's ever been produced in the world," says True Honey Company founder and CEO Jim McMillan.

The batch of honey is so rare that True Honey Company's sold all 200 jars exclusively to Harrods in London, fetching almost $5000 a pop.

"It equates to roughly $22,000 per kilogram basically," McMillan says.

The eye-watering price tag is only possible due to its high unique manuka factor (UMF) rating - the scale of manuka purity. Coming in at 33 the honey is in a league of its own.

"We know there's over 2000 unique markers behind this honey, more unique than any other honey we've seen. It's like watching a heartbeat when you see it on a graph," UMF Honey Association general manager John Rawcliffe says.

McMillan links his sweet success to the way in which he harvests. He flies hives into remote parts of the country where you'll find high concentrations of manuka trees.

"I'm sure you'll understand it's an undisclosed location that we're not prepared to share," he adds.

There's clearly a market and it bodes well for the entire sector.

"It's fairly major for the industry. It says the sky's the limit in what we're trying to achieve and Harrods is a noted distributor, very noted," Rawcliffe says.

This liquid gold is creating quite the buzz here and abroad.