Non of my set goes above 42c during melting for jarring up
Which would fail the temperature threshold for raw honey according to Black Mountain Honey's 2022 petition:
Allow honey produced in a certain way to be sold as "raw honey"
The UK Government should allow honey to be sold as "raw honey" when it is unpasteurised and not heated above 40c.
That got 307 signatures, so there is hardly a big clamour for this.
Lawrence/BMH writes:
The term 'raw' is a well recognised and understood by the consumer and I believe it would be sensible to allow people trading in honey to label their honey "raw" to distinguish products produced in this way from other honey.
Yet is well understood? If honey is not heated above 40C then it can't be pasteurised, so any references to pasteurisation are unnecessary and confusing.
Incidentally, the honey regs specify a maximum of 45C to aid pressing honey. What temperature is allowed for raw heather honey?
His own definition doesn't include any mention of filtering, yet unfiltered is a widely expected requirement of 'raw honey'. Perhaps writely he assumes all UK/EU honey should already be unfiltered according to the honey regs. If honey has been filtered so that pollen is being removed it should be labelled as 'filtered honey'.
Odysea claim their honey is raw because it is only sourced from one beekeeper. Their honey comes from all over Greece, so I doubt that one beekeeper is personally taking off every super. The honey from different regions is blended together, I think it is really questionable that this can be called raw.
I see Lawrence has started using again the word raw on his website. He uses it on the Borage honey he has bought in. That doesn't match Odysea's definition.
It would be ridiculous to call soft-set/creamed honey as raw, but I see online people do sell raw soft-set. Creamed: the honey has had the cr@p beaten out of it. Soft-set: been subjected to a series of controlled temperatures plus seeding with fine crystals.
As far as I can see, if you absolutely must put a definition on raw honey, the only sensible definition is to say raw honey has not been artificially heated at all.