Nine out of 10 honey products sold in British supermarkets are fake, researchers have discovered.
Shoppers are being duped into buying adulterated honey, often imported from abroad, that has been diluted with cheap sugar syrup, they say.
Last month, the British branch of the Honey Authenticity Network sent thirty honey samples to be tested for authenticity to a specialized laboratory in Estonia.
Only six samples – including five samples obtained directly from independent British beekeepers – were found to be genuine.
The rest, from supermarkets and other major British retailers, turned out to be fake and was probably supplemented with cheap rice or beet syrups.
Lynne Ingram, Somerset beekeeper and chair of the Honey Authenticity Network UK, told The Observer: ‘The market is being flooded with cheap, imported adulterated honey and is undermining the business of real honey producers. “The public is being misinformed because they are buying what they think is real honey.”
The EU is working on advanced testing techniques to detect honey fraud and has passed new legislation to allow better country of origin labeling on jars of honey (file image)
The majority of honey products sold in British supermarkets are fake, researchers have discovered (file image)
Lynne Ingram, a beekeeper from Somerset and chair of the Honey Authenticity Network UK, told the Observer: ‘The market is being flooded with cheap, imported adulterated honey’
A separate European Union study published last year found that 46 percent of the 147 imported honey samples they analyzed were likely fraudulent and had been tampered with – including all ten samples from Britain.
The EU is working on advanced testing techniques to detect honey fraud and has passed new legislation to allow better country of origin labeling on jars of honey.
Paul Horton, a beekeeper and owner of Apidae Honey in Lincolnshire, whose honey was analyzed by the Estonian laboratory and found authentic, said a better testing regime was needed and supermarkets should be encouraged to stock more British products.
“We used to sell our honey in bulk to packers who supplied the supermarkets,” he said. ‘That market has shrunk because supermarkets don’t stock as much British honey.’
Nearly £90 million worth of honey was imported into Britain last year. Much of these imports come from China, which is known to be targeted by fraudsters.
Although honey importers insist that honey origins and supply chains are carefully monitored, there is no consensus on how samples should be analyzed or which tests are most reliable.
Nearly £90 million worth of honey was imported into Britain last year. Much of these imports come from China, which is known to be targeted by fraudsters (file image)
The Celvia research institute in Estonia has developed a unique test to analyze the DNA composition of honey to determine whether it is real. The test examines up to 20 million DNA sequences in a given sample and compares them to the DNA of more than 500 real honey varieties, half of which come from the Northern European country, in their database.
Kaarel Krjutškov, director of the Celvia laboratory, said: ‘It is surprisingly easy to distinguish between fake and authentic products. It’s a huge gap.’
But a spokesperson for the British Honey Importers and Packers Association (BHIPA) questioned the “truth” of tests carried out by commercial laboratories, “which discriminate against honey from certain regions.”
He said: ‘We continue to support any tests that help eliminate the potential sale of substandard honey to the UK market, but their methodology, scientific basis and application must be fit for purpose and independently validated before they can be recognized for enforcement.
‘We believe that the vast majority of honey consumed in Britain is of very high quality and not fraudulent.’