Creator of Lone Bee Mead, Oren Dalton was raised on a dairy farm in the Far North. As a teenager, Dalton moved to Auckland where he went on to study Commerce at the University of Auckland. After searching all around, Dalton couldn’t find any honey mead and, with no brewing experience, decided to “give it a crack” and brew some himself. Over a number of years, he invested spare time into creating the perfect recipe.
Dalton’s move into honey mead brewing stemmed from one basic idea: If New Zealand creates the best honey in the world, why can’t New Zealand create the best sparkling mead too?
His dream to lead and grow the New Zealand mead industry shapes his approach to the business and mead creation. Dalton hopes to create a healthier and happier New Zealand and planet - “Lofty dream I know however like I said… if we create the best honey in the world!”
Sustainability practices are at the forefront of the mead business. Helping to offset carbon emissions right from production all the way through to consumption, honey mead production requires the planting of more trees, flowers and plants and most importantly more bees to create the honey. More trees, flowers, plants and bees ultimately create a healthier and happier planet.
Lone Bee creates a Sparkling Mead with no preservatives, additives or flavourings. The product was recently endorsed by world-famous chef Jamie Oliver, via social media. Dalton hopes that everyone finds the mead amazing, but the celebrity chef endorsement spoke volumes about the product he has created.
“Seeing Jamie Oliver genuinely loving and being amazed by how good Lone Bee is, is a massive achievement and validates all of those years of passion, ups and downs, and hard work.”
Working on, creating, and sharing his passions is the most rewarding part of the job at Lone Bee for Dalton. Tasting his first trial batch, he knew he had created something amazing and he found big achievement in creating the business’ first 4000L commercial batch.
“Offset by the fact that I had only two places lined up to sell it!”
Oren Dalton finds a great mead is “one that is so amazing you actually can’t stop drinking it”, giving his role of creator at Lone Bee its difficulties.
Dreaming big, his future goals for the brewery involve getting Lone Bee mead stocked in every bottle shop, supermarket, bar, and restaurant across the country. Dreaming bigger, Dalton plans to leverage and build upon the existing export markets across the UK, Hong Kong and Singapore, before making his way into the Chinese market, and the rest of the world.
Lone Bee Sparkling Mead is available throughout New Zealand at supermarkets and liquor stores. Find your local stockist at lonebee.co.nz
