Carpinteria’s Man of Manuka

When David Noll escaped California in the 1970s to chase waves and seek a more idyllic life, he found bliss in New Zealand, working as a lab tech and laborer, finding a wife, and then running a bicycle store. But his real calling — to be the man who spread the superfood magic of manuka honey throughout the United States — came almost by accident in the early 1980s, when he brought a batch of honey from beekeeper friends back to California while visiting his parents in Santa Barbara.

The Kiwis were having trouble importing into America, so Noll took the honey to a food expo, where it was a big hit. “No one had heard much about New Zealand, but the quality of their products just shined through,” said Noll. “It’s a very pristine country, without much processing.”

At that time, the positive health benefits of manuka honey — though appreciated for millennia by the Maori people — weren’t quite as well-documented as they are today, and it wouldn’t even be commercially branded as “manuka” until a few years later. But the basic New Zealand honey was truly all-natural, raw, and more complex than much else on the market, which especially caught the attention of boutique grocers and the growing legion of health-food stores. With the interest so apparent, Noll loaded up an old Dodge van with honey jars and drove from San Diego to San Francisco. “I didn’t come home until the van was empty,” he said.