Honey in the news again.

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Are the supermarkets supposed to do their own analysis? That’s what my local trading standards say. No excuse for selling adulterated honey because they should be checking what goes in their shelves.
 
No excuse for selling adulterated honey because they should be checking what goes in their shelves.

Agreed, but from what this article says, it's harder than we might think to check if honey has been adulterated or not. Which is a bit depressing.
 
Agreed, but from what this article says, it's harder than we might think to check if honey has been adulterated or not. Which is a bit depressing.
They do, allegedly, check the veracity of their own label brands but I understand that the 'testing' is sometimes carried out by the suppliers who certify the origins and constituents of the honey they supply - there cannot be a lot of incentive to declare if the honey you are buying in from China, in bulk to sell on, does not meet the 'made by bees' UK honey regulations.

The tests are also quite difficult to carry out and I suspect not entirely reliable. We all know from the price that some of these honeys are, on shelf, in supermarkets, there is no way they can be 'real honey'. It's been a worldwide problem for years ... the stuff they used to cut the real honey with is freely available on Ali Baba. Honey from China is regularly 'laundered' through unscrupulous third party dealers in Europe and sold on as something it is not. My view ... ban importation of Chinese Honey and insist on a chain of provenance - but that's not going to happen is it ?

Whether Joe Public will worry ? I doubt it .... until they have tasted real honey will they ever know the difference ? My customers appreciate what they are buying from my bees and would never buy honey at £1.50 a jar with an unknown 'blend of EU and Non-EU' honey label ... but, there are lots of very poor people out there at present trying to feed kids and I have some sympathy that price is important to them - we should not live in an Ivory tower. By all means educate but own label honey customers are not our market ...
 
There was a National Honey Show lecture this year - Etienne Bruneau: The honey market in turmoil - which expained that the reason much of our honey is adulterated is because our testing regime is the worst in Europe so are seen as an easy target.
I don't think the lecture is available to view on YouTube yet.
 
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I was in Lidl the other day 85p for a 340g jar !!!!
 
There is nothing wrong with Lidl's "honey", or Tesco's or anyone else per se. Just don't call it honey.
We quite happily buy Prosecco instead of Champagne, or Orange juice "from concentrate" etc. As long as it is not claiming to be what it isn't, I have no problem but clearly that is not the case. This crap is being sold as honey and it should be stopped.

We need a name for fake honey to be used on the labels:
Foney?
Sugar Spread?
Sweet spread?
etc
 
the Government could stop all food adulteration very simply.
Any proven cases - whether the vendor knows or not - and the vendor is fined a % of turnover.
Multiple cases? % increases.

The vendor carries full responsibility. If testing is difficult , the vendors can fund a better testing system.

Brutal but it would work fairly quickly.
 
Maybe it's not the supplier adding anything to the honey at all.
It could be the Bees collecting sugar syrup from somewhere.
 
Maybe it's not the supplier adding anything to the honey at all.
It could be the Bees collecting sugar syrup from somewhere.
I hear tell of beekeepers feeding copious amounts of fresh sugar syrup and spinning it off in the mix, increases yields somewhat... the "honey" is somewhat sweet!
 
Same thing happening here. Imported honeys for $0.50 a pound at US port of entry. Vietnam, Ukraine, and others...all spelled China. People running tests say 70% adulterated with rice syrup and other sugars. Fancy icons on honey labels...True Source Certified...claiming they can track the honey back to producer. Found one jar of true source certified "Raw Clover" honey. Must be, because there's the icon. Too bad for them that I know honeys from North America. That honey is 100% Canadian canola. Closest it ever got to clover was when the truck carrying it drove past clover fields on the way to the packers plant. And just who is True Source Certified? The board of directors are from the 10 biggest honey packers in North America. How do you spell fraud? I've attempted to get the State to sample some of this rubbish honey but they decline every time.
 
The propaganda was that the EU was saddling us with regulations. They never seem to have done that with honey standards. Good luck trying to get greater regulation from a government that sold itself on prospering through global trade.

This is worth a listen. James Rebanks talking to Jeremy Paxman
 
They do, allegedly, check the veracity of their own label brands but I understand that the 'testing' is sometimes carried out by the suppliers who certify the origins and constituents of the honey they supply - there cannot be a lot of incentive to declare if the honey you are buying in from China, in bulk to sell on, does not meet the 'made by bees' UK honey regulations.

The tests are also quite difficult to carry out and I suspect not entirely reliable. We all know from the price that some of these honeys are, on shelf, in supermarkets, there is no way they can be 'real honey'. It's been a worldwide problem for years ... the stuff they used to cut the real honey with is freely available on Ali Baba. Honey from China is regularly 'laundered' through unscrupulous third party dealers in Europe and sold on as something it is not. My view ... ban importation of Chinese Honey and insist on a chain of provenance - but that's not going to happen is it ?

Whether Joe Public will worry ? I doubt it .... until they have tasted real honey will they ever know the difference ? My customers appreciate what they are buying from my bees and would never buy honey at £1.50 a jar with an unknown 'blend of EU and Non-EU' honey label ... but, there are lots of very poor people out there at present trying to feed kids and I have some sympathy that price is important to them - we should not live in an Ivory tower. By all means educate but own label honey customers are not our market ...
A ban could easily happen come January if the government want to....
 
A ban could easily happen come January if the government want to....
I think they are going to have more pressing issues in January ... although I do hope, in time, that something will be done to stop the sales of products purported to be honey that are adulterated with cheaper ingredients.
 
There was a National Honey Show lecture this year - Etienne Bruneau: The honey market in turmoil - which expained that the reason much of our honey is adulterated is because our testing regime is the worst in Europe so are seen as an easy target.
I don't think the lecture is available to view on YouTube yet.
I read a statistic that stated that 1 in 3 jars labelled Honey on USA supermarket shelves, contained no Honey whatsoever!
 
Yes - from the open barrels of syrup left lying around the apiaries
I read an article years ago about Chinese honey. I don't think I was a beekeeper then. This precisely what they do. There are 'bee factories' where billions of bees are kept. They are fed sugar syrup that they turn into 'honey.' It is no different from any other factory farming involving other animals. Obviously the produce lacks just about every other ingredient of proper honey, made by bees, operating in a natural environment.
 

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