in May she presented entries for both her new honey cough drops, and the beeswax wraps in the Useful category. “To make these drops and wraps with no electricity is quite a challenge,” she wrote, “but
Cough drops are made by hand using moulds
with my family’s help, my drum oven, charcoal oven and fireplace, I am proud to enter them for PNG to benefit if I become the winner.” The drops are 100% organic with no additives, and the honey is not heated or refined like commercial honey. When the drops are made, the honey is stirred in
with turmeric extract, berries, avocado skin and stone, natural dyes from leaves and seeds used traditionally to dye the famous Buang ‘tulip’ bilums. Alma says it is “100% doable” to create her drops on a large commercial scale, with the main cost buying plastic jars and cotton for the wraps. “I believe my cough drops may become PNG’s originally unique and healthier remedy for colds and flus, and an immune booster. Packed and sealed with all the honey goodness, it’s a PNG homegrown product worth selling to the nation.” – Ari Ani Health Products BELOW: Members of Alma’s family prepare to extract juice from sugarcane to make sugar dust for the cough drops
nine and hope to expand to 20 this year. “We produce one of the best tasting, if not the best tasting honey there is, period. Am I eligible to enter it?” Alma wrote in an initial enquiry about the Lily competition’s Edible category in March 2023. After being advised the judges were looking for innovative products made from raw ingredients,
last on low heat to preserve nutrients. All ingredients are locally grown, right down to the sugar water and corn starch for dusting drops made from local sugarcane and corn. For the wraps, Alma uses pine and dammar resins from her backyard trees, virgin coconut oil, and wax from her hives, with 100% cotton, then paints them
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