The beautiful Ulmo tree (Eucryphia cordifolia) is native to Chile. It is a large but very slow growing evergreen shrub that can grow to form a tree reaching 6 to 9 metres high. It is part of the temperate rain forests that grow from Valdivia in the Lakes Region of Chile to as far south as Chiloe.

The Ulmo tree is full of large white, camellia like flowers, from the end of January until March (the second half of the Chilean summer). When the Ulmo is in flower the mountains and hills on which it thrives are blanketed in a white haze.

Ulmo not only looks and smells beautiful when in flower, but bees love the abundant nectar that it produces. Literally - the hills are alive with the sound of bees buzzing.

The nectar collected by the bees soon turns to a delicious creamy honey with a buttery texture and colour, with an amazingly delicate perfume that has been absorbed from the flowers.

The taste and aroma conjure up a subtle mixture of Aniseed, Jasmine, Vanilla and Cloves with a touch of tea and caramel. It is not surprising that in Chile Ulmo honey is a most prized and sought after honey.

It is not only the Chileans who appreciate the uniqueness of Ulmo Honey. At the 2007 Winter Fancy Food Show in San Francisco, Ulmo honey was awarded Best Raw Honey of the Show.

So what makes our Ulmo honey so special over and above other Ulmo honeys?

To find out, we went to the honey team of Professor Gloria Montenegro at the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, which is considered by many to be the most prestigious University in Chile. Professor Gloria was voted the top female scientist for South America several years ago by UNESCO.

The first thing we did with the University was check the purity of our Ulmo honey as not all Ulmo honey is the same and the levels of purity can vary significantly. Such variation is due to factors including the location of hives and the extraction process.

The analysis was carried out by putting a drop of our honey under a microscope and looking at the pollen grains. When the bee is busy collecting nectar, some pollen from the flower sticks to the bee. When it puts that nectar in the cells of the bee comb to store it, some of that pollen finds its way into the honey. Every plant has pollen grains which can be identified by a skilled botanist.

The results showed that 90% of the nectar collected by our bees comes from the Ulmo flower. It is nearly pure Ulmo.

This graph shows that 90% of the nectar source in our Ulmo honey comes from the Ulmo tree (Eucryphia cordifolia) with only very small proportions coming from other native plants found in the rain forest of southern Chile. The nectar flow from the Ulmo is so attractive for the bees that they collect almost only this.

We knew our Ulmo honey tasted good but Professor Gloria Montenegro has set up a taste and aroma team (as is done to define these factors in wines) who have defined the Ulmo taste and aroma as that of Aniseed, Jasmine, Vanilla and Cloves with a touch of Tea and Caramel.

The next thing we wanted to know was does it have any antioxidant properties? The capacity to reduce oxidative reactions in an organism can be present or absent in any honey. Even when it is present, it varies significantly among the honeys.

Reducing oxidative reactions is thought to have many benefits to human health. That it is why the consumption of vegetables and foods that present antioxidant capacities is recognised as being healthy for humans.

Honeys are the new organic foods with antioxidant capacity, and easy to consume on a daily basis. More important still is that the honey has been experimentally proven to be an antioxidant functional food.

Using very advanced techniques the University has shown that the Ulmo honey of Rio San Pedro has 70% of the antioxidant effect of a highly developed pharmaceutical product called Trolox(r). What is the difference? Ulmo honey is not a drug. You simply eat it and it can help you combat the aging process, the onset of Alzheimer's and reduce the risk of cancer, all of which are stimulated by the formation of active and damaging oxygen in the blood.

It tastes good and even better, it is quietly improving your health.

All honeys have an antibiotic effect if used on wounds or burns as they seal the wound and, via an enzyme reaction, produce hydrogen peroxide that kills bacteria.

However there are honeys that have very special and powerful antibiotic effects. One company in Germany has already run carefully controlled tests using specific honeys to treat wounds sustained by children with leukemia where antibiotics were not working. These tests produced very impressive results.

There is increasing comment in the medical, scientific and daily press which addresses the reality that the abuse and careless use of antibiotics is leading to the formation of “super-bacteria” that are resistant to treatment. In the States resistance to antibiotics in the case of Staphylococcus aureus is linked to more than 94,000 serious infections and nearly 19,000 deaths every year. In terms of this level of deaths it is more lethal than AIDS.

The team of Professor Gloria Montenegro has now completed over 2 years of research using the specific honeys of Rio San Pedro against a wide spectrum of pathogenic bacteria that effect humans. Her team has made extensive comparisons with many other honeys including honeys from New Zealand which are held up as the bench mark of antibiotic honeys.

The results of this work are very exciting. At this stage the results are confidential but the honeys of Rio San Pedro has the potential to become a powerful tool to control bacteria that affects humans, without any of the risks associated with pharmaceutical products. Rio San Pedro is very happy to share this research with pharmaceutical companies genuinely interested in developing totally natural antibiotic products.

In addition to the work being done for Rio San Pedro by the Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile, we have been working with the Sports Nutrition team at the University of Chester in Great Britain. Rio San Pedro helped sponsor an M.Sc project run by Ian Mayhew, under the supervision of Dr. Stephen Fellows. Ian is an athlete with a string of extreme sport achievements to his name.

This study examined the ergo-metric benefits derived from the consumption of a honey based sports drink during a simulated 56- mile cycle time trial. The trail was conducted under laboratory conditions.

Six trained endurance cyclists cycled on a static bike for 56 miles on three different occasions. On each of the three occasions they were provided with a different drink. One was made up using Ulmo honey from Rio San Pedro, one using the commercially available carbohydrate sports drink mix (Jo Friel Heat) and the third was a water based placebo. Flavouring was added to all three drinks to reduce the risk of the athletes recognizing which drink they were taking.

The trials were conducted in random order, during which the subjects consumed 900ml of fluid every hour. Carbohydrate intake in each of the carbohydrate- based solutions was maintained at 60g per hour. During exercise, power output was monitored continuously, whilst aural temperature, blood glucose, heart rate, gastric discomfort, respiratory exchange ratio (RER) and rate of perceived exertion (RPE) were recorded every 20 minutes.

Both the honey drink and the commercial sports drink were significantly better at maintaining blood glucose levels during the course of the trial, as well as maintaining lower body temperatures compared to the water-based placebo. There was no significant difference between each athlete's performance using the honey and the Jo Friel Heat drink.

The data suggests that honey is able to offer similar erogenic properties during prolonged exercise to commercially available sports drinks. The plus is that it is a natural product, more economic and the athlete can make up their own sports drinks.