Top Dollar

[Into the lions den]

And ... import cheap honey from countries who have little or no regulation.... No CE certification on honey!

I think you should address that to Rowse and Hain Daniels.

The buyer at Rowse, Cahal Hennigan is sure to have a view on your assertion.......they buy under very strict protocols and the list of countries they could buy from (well until Brexit at least) was actually pretty short and to get a country's honey approved for import to the EU they had to go through a lot of hoops. The quality standards were prescribed and the country had to meet them. Countries with little or no regulation are NOT allowed. Whether you..or many beekeepers for that matter..agree with the rules is another matter altogether.

Tropical Forest Products...a very ethical and proper business...has had real issues bringing in artisan honey from other countriers (esp African ones) as the rules a producing country HAS to meet are very strict.

Even OUR honey from the UK..when it enters the chain of one of the larger packers..has EVERY batch analysed for a plethora of things. The big guiys HAVE to have an audit trail on every batch...often to protect themselves from all manner of allegations..often coming from beekeepers..but more often from campaigning groups.

 

[Into the lions den]

As ITLD says different honey crops are very variable. I sieve mine as it comes out of extractor into 30lb buckets. I let it sit in the bucket for a few weeks in order to determine how it will set ( or not). If it naturally shows a tendency to set that is how I will process it, ( as soft set if the initial set is hard and crystalline). If it remains runny, then it is processed as runny honey. Runny honey is a rarity in my apiary, so I do not want to waste it by inadvertently setting it

Indeed. A naturally slow crystallising honey that has a long shelf life clear is a premium product in the UK and should be marketed thus. Most of our honey has a LOW F/G ratio so crystallises pretty well and sometimes at very rapid rates..like the VERY low ratio OSR.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Some floral source honey types..esp those with a high F/G ratio...are just not conducive to working as set honey. Don't know what type you have there but that could be a reason. If you live in an area with very varied forage..then the weather patterns each year can lead to very different honey properties. Makes it very interesting rather than the 'same most years' that we get.

That’s interesting.
I should know this after all these years
I will have to pay more attention to which honey does what.
The variation we get is whether we get any spring honey or not so Dandelion was really good last year, and set quickly, but Hawthorn lousy.
Four years ago a pine crop was taken across the valley and Rosebay covered the hillside.

 

[Newbeeneil]

I think you should address that to Rowse and Hain Daniels.

The buyer at Rowse, Cahal Hennigan is sure to have a view on your assertion.......they buy under very strict protocols and the list of countries they could buy from (well until Brexit at least) was actually pretty short and to get a country's honey approved for import to the EU they had to go through a lot of hoops. The quality standards were prescribed and the country had to meet them. Countries with little or no regulation are NOT allowed. Whether you..or many beekeepers for that matter..agree with the rules is another matter altogether.

Tropical Forest Products...a very ethical and proper business...has had real issues bringing in artisan honey from other countriers (esp African ones) as the rules a producing country HAS to meet are very strict.

Even OUR honey from the UK..when it enters the chain of one of the larger packers..has EVERY batch analysed for a plethora of things. The big guiys HAVE to have an audit trail on every batch...often to protect themselves from all manner of allegations..often coming from beekeepers..but more often from campaigning groups.

This is really interesting Murray and being in your position, with your contacts you get an insight into the whole process of the packing industry that we don't.
I know us small time keepers like to drone on about adulteration in honeys from any supermarket or large label marketer of honey but how do some of these outlets have honey for sale at seemingly untenable prices?

 

[Apple]

This is really interesting Murray and being in your position, with your contacts you get an insight into the whole process of the packing industry that we don't.
I know us small time keepers like to drone on about adulteration in honeys from any supermarket or large label marketer of honey but how do some of these outlets have honey for sale at seemingly untenable prices?

If the BIG honey packers have such stringent quality controls in place and an audit trail of the honey they import... how come we see TESCO and others removing "honey" from their shelves due to reports of it being "contaminated" with various substances such as corn syrup etc????

Perhaps Rowse and their fellow honey packers should put some money into helping the UK Beefarmers get a better return for their efforts?

YES I know Rowse sponsor a few apprenticeship places... and Tesco have been benefactors to helping the native bees.
If Germany can be self sufficient in honey and even export( all be it with MASSIVE state funding.. and control of imported exotic species)I can see no reason why the now independent Sovereign state of GREAT Britain could not do the same with our endemic and native Amm?????

RULE BRITANNIA

Sunday sermon over
AMEN

 

[E&MBees]

Indeed. A naturally slow crystallising honey that has a long shelf life clear is a premium product in the UK and should be marketed thus. Most of our honey has a LOW F/G ratio so crystallises pretty well and sometimes at very rapid rates..like the VERY low ratio OSR.

That’s really reassuring. With lots of beeks saying that their honey was crystallising, I was worried that I was doing something wrong as mine isn’t.

 

[Erichalfbee]

That’s really reassuring. With lots of beeks saying that their honey was crystallising, I was worried that I was doing something wrong as mine isn’t.

I keep a jar or few back every year. My first honey from 2008 is still clear.

 

[ericbeaumont]

how do some of these outlets have honey for sale at seemingly untenable prices?

Yes, I'm also confused because the three stories can't all be true: imported honey on sale in the UK at £1/lb, the probity Murray described of EU/big suppliers' thorough authentication and testing, and the Tesco NMR story last year which revealed that their imported bulk honey was diluted.

In the mix is the issue of accepted testing methods: UK tests are apparently weak, and a supplier caught in the spotlight hides easily behind the idea that anyway, none of them are considered conclusive.

We might have hoped that NMR would be a silver bullet, but not so, as reported in the .gov Honey authenticity seminar in 2019: NMR methods were not yet suitable for the detection of exogenous sugars in honey for enforcement purposes.

The reasons given for this included a lack of information on the databases underpinning interpretation of the method outputs, particularly around the origin of ‘authentic’ samples and representation of the UK honey market.

In addition, participants felt that there was insufficient information on the results of inter-laboratory comparisons of the methods and on the scope of laboratory accreditation.

By the time the report reaches page 16 of 18 it gets a bit wishy-washy, with requirements and suggestions and needs but no actionable targets to enable NMR to be accepted without doubt. By page 17 differing industry views of how to proceed led me to conclude that we're some way from a robust UK testing system.

 

[Erichalfbee]

Yes, I'm also confused because the three stories can't all be true: imported honey on sale in the UK at £1/lb, the probity Murray described of EU/big suppliers' thorough authentication and testing, and the Tesco NMR story last year which revealed that their imported bulk honey was diluted.

In the mix is the issue of accepted testing methods: UK tests are apparently weak, and a supplier caught in the spotlight hides easily behind the idea that anyway, none of the tests are considered conclusive.

We might have hoped that NMR would be a silver bullet, but not so, as reported in the .gov Honey authenticity seminar in 2019: NMR methods were not yet suitable for the detection of exogenous sugars in honey for enforcement purposes.

The reasons given for this included a lack of information on the databases underpinning interpretation of the method outputs, particularly around the origin of ‘authentic’ samples and representation of the UK honey market.

In addition, participants felt that there was insufficient information on the results of inter-laboratory comparisons of the methods and on the scope of laboratory accreditation.

By the time the report gets to page 16 of 18 it gets a bit wishy-washy, with requirements and suggestions and needs but no actionable targets to enable NMR to be accepted without doubt. By page 17 differing industry views of how to proceed led me to conclude that we're some way from a robust UK testing system.

This is what I got from Trading Standards with the Tesco honey I sent in. The NMR results could be challenged and the supermarket had the financial clout to do it so no prosecution.

 

[Apple]

Th

Yes, I'm also confused because the three stories can't all be true: imported honey on sale in the UK at £1/lb, the probity Murray described of EU/big suppliers' thorough authentication and testing, and the Tesco NMR story last year which revealed that their imported bulk honey was diluted.

In the mix is the issue of accepted testing methods: UK tests are apparently weak, and a supplier caught in the spotlight hides easily behind the idea that anyway, none of the tests are considered conclusive.

We might have hoped that NMR would be a silver bullet, but not so, as reported in the .gov Honey authenticity seminar in 2019: NMR methods were not yet suitable for the detection of exogenous sugars in honey for enforcement purposes.

The reasons given for this included a lack of information on the databases underpinning interpretation of the method outputs, particularly around the origin of ‘authentic’ samples and representation of the UK honey market.

In addition, participants felt that there was insufficient information on the results of inter-laboratory comparisons of the methods and on the scope of laboratory accreditation.

By the time the report gets to page 16 of 18 it gets a bit wishy-washy, with requirements and suggestions and needs but no actionable targets to enable NMR to be accepted without doubt. By page 17 differing industry views of how to proceed led me to conclude that we're some way from a robust UK testing system.

Therefore, dear brethren, we shall have contaminated "honey" on the supermarket shelves for £1.68 a pop!
Now I know why it it is usually stacked next to the Golden Syrup and "Maple syrup flavoured" offerings!!

The wise consumer will seek out real honey and hopefully will continue to support the local producers at a healthy £10+ a pound

Yeghes da

 

[BeeKeyPlayer]

No - that's why the term 'soft set' was invented

Maybe, but I can't find when the verb 'creamed' was banned for honey. Was it done at an official or legal level, and not someone just saying there's no cream in honey?

 

[pargyle]

Lies come in all forms....from little white ones to great big black ones, and this type...painting a picture that invites people to think badly of a different yet equivalent beekeepers product is still a category of lie.

I've read all your posts in this thread and there's a lot I would accept and agree with ... I don''t have an issue with UK packers and blenders ... they are usually branded and their product consistent and aimed at a less discerning sector of the market. Albeit the products are often tasteless and bland compared to the honey I sell - not always my opinion. I have the comments and opinions of my customers to reinforce my opinion - indeed, I have offered blind taste tests between my honey and supermarket brands and the preference has always been at least 80% in favour of my honey. Children seem to occasionally prefer the supermarket brands - perhaps it's the blander taste that finds favour with their taste buds ..I would hesitate to suggest that these products do sometimes taste 'sweeter'.

The issue I have is own label brands that are claiming to be honey but at the price points they are pitched then they are either not honey or they are being produced under such exploitative conditions within the countries where they originate that they should be questioned on ethical grounds.

None of this really affects my sale of honey . I'm a hobbyist .. I sell my honey to support my hobby at a price premium above the vast majority of supermarket brands. My existing, discerning, customers KNOW I sell a product that is unadulterated, not unduly processed and which provides them with a taste experience above and beyond anything they can expect on the local supermarket shelves .. they will buy those to cook with ... mine, they buy for the taste and some of them for the belief that local honey is doing them good; whilst I never put forward this aspect of local honey - I would be foolish not to accept the opinions of those who feel it helps their healh and wellbeing.

Clearly, I don't believe in negative marketing and I won't disparage branded supermarket honeys - I simply tell new customers that my honey may TASTE different - and they usually concur once they have tried my honey. I explain how my honey gets from bee to jar and how little it is processed and I differentiate my product from the supermarket offerings.

I think most hobbyist and small scale beefarmers will have a similar attittude - we are not competing with the big boys... I dislike the connotations it provides but we are artisan producers.

The question I have and let's leave it outside of the honey labelling regulations ... is how do you adequately differentiate on a label how our honey is different to the processed, consolidated, blended and fine filtered offerings in the supermarkets ?

I accept that your market requires you to uphold the integrity of the packers you sell to .,. and I am not in any way questioning that position or disparaging their product. However, if you feel that additions in our labels such as Raw or Artisan or similar descriptive terms are disparaging the products found on supermarket shelves how do you suggest we put forward the nature of our honey on a label without resorting to a fold out label with a page of small print. Honey on its own does seem to be a slightly inadequate descriptive ?

 

[gmonag]

...denigration of your fellow beekeepers

The very idea...!

 

[ericbeaumont]

labels such as Raw or Artisan or similar descriptive terms are disparaging the products found on supermarket shelves

To be fair, Philip, Murray said that the R word was a highly disingenuous way of denigrating other producers honey by implying that the product of other beekeepers..leaving the big boys out of it for now...is somehow inferior

I decline to use the word until it's defined in legal terms but can live with the next beekeeper at market using it - only so far one can take a discussion - but it makes for an uneven playing field.

Your point is well made: if R is a weasel word, how should an average beekeeper differentiate the routine from our Rolls-Royce?

Price, label (see Jeff's at post 15) and market position are the current best options to do the job because changing legislation - the ideal outcome - may be more tricky.

 

[enrico]

It is the denigration of your fellow beekeepers product by using the meaningless (in honey descriptions) word 'raw'...then raising the straw man of pasteurisation...and thus inviting the interpretation that other beekeepers honey is NOT raw. Its utterly false and DOES...even though not explicitly stated..entice the gullible purchaser to think YOUR honey is untampered with and other peoples....equally artisan...... is inferior.

Lies come in all forms....from little white ones to great big black ones, and this type...painting a picture that invites people to think badly of a different yet equivalent beekeepers product is still a category of lie.

Here we go again! I have said it all before. I am not lying about my honey and I am not bad mouthing yours. I am advertising truthfully.
It is no different to you charging twice what I do for the same size jar of honey. Your expensive honey suggests mine is cheap and therefore inferior!
Amen

 

[Into the lions den]

Normal polyflora honey types trade freely internationally at less than USD 2000 per tonnes. The product from China far below that. One packer I was talking to reckoned the supermarket had their margin screwed down to about 3p per jar. The importer (which is generally NOT the packer) working on 3%. Nobody is getting rich off this stuff! (If you donr' believe that phone an importer and ask..or a mid scale packer like Hilltop who are very frank about things.)

The adulteration is a very difficult subject....the production method in China of spinning out fresh nectar and then drying it in the factory gives rise to a lot of the differences. Do I think it is malpractice? Of course......they take ALL the bees bring in whereas we only get a percentage of it as a lot is consumed in the very act of ripening it.

NMR testing is very suspect indeed. At a major international honey show they tested the exhibits, almost without exception from amateur beekeepers who one would generally regard as above suspicion of adulteration. The majority of the exhibits failed.

The recent stories about the likes of Tesco honey were widely circulated....but the body for honey purity that was the source of both the stories AND the funding for a testing programme is in fact a front body for South American honey producers..in particular Argentina....the most high profile victim of Chinese practices and pricing. It is thus a non neutral pressure group. Their own honey often fails the tests too btw but of course they dont mention that.

Dont go thinking I am cosying up to the packers either. I have had interesting and quite sharp exchanges with them on the subject and have been a speaker speaker at a HIPPA meeting in London. Do not blame the supermarkets for this issue..it is more complex than that and there is (or maybe is not?) collusion at all stages of the chain.

I do not sell direct to any of the packers btw...everything we do is at arms length through an intermediary. Protects me from the endless twaddle they get slung at them and they have their own quality and PR staff to deal with it.

You should also not pay too much attention to these low price lines. You might not like them and think them bland syrups...but the client who uses these is most unlikely ever to be your client. It is a totally different market sector..almost a different product category. Stay in your high priced niche....you do well there...if you want the clientelle who buy cheap honey for cooking or whatever then you have to cut your prices. What go and do that? Its the top 10% of the customer base..those that discern by quality and not price...that are the clients of all of us here. Work your niche...forget the mass market stuff..it is actually almost irrelevant.

There is NOTHING to prevent you putting a description of your product on the label to enlighten the customer. Just make it true. There is nothing wrong with saying your honey is an artisan product just so long as it is.

Have seen unfiltered misused too...in fact knew of one outfit that bought in smashed up pollen combs and cappings etc, filled the jars with normal honey then back added the detritus. Not UK btw.....

 

[Into the lions den]

Here we go again! I have said it all before. I am not lying about my honey and I am not bad mouthing yours. I am advertising truthfully.
It is no different to you charging twice what I do for the same size jar of honey. Your expensive honey suggests mine is cheap and therefore inferior!
Amen

I am in the very fortunate position of never selling a single jar. Some of the packers who buy my honey do a great job with it...some a lot less so.

However the point I was making is that the use of the word raw is ofeten accompaniesd by assertions about overheated and/or pasteurised honey. I was not singling out any particular producer as guilty......but it is the whole drift of the 'raw' honey claim. That other honey that does not state it is somehow 'not raw';.

 

[Ian123]

The only unfortunate thing about Murray’s posts is they’ll dry up when the season starts

 

[user 6228]

One would think the BBKA would promote something like a "British Local Honey mark" to distinguish small beekeeper apiary jarred honey from "more commercial" offerings

 

[robinharman]

I've read all your posts in this thread and there's a lot I would accept and agree with ... I don''t have an issue with UK packers and blenders ... they are usually branded and their product consistent and aimed at a less discerning sector of the market. Albeit the products are often tasteless and bland compared to the honey I sell - not always my opinion. I have the comments and opinions of my customers to reinforce my opinion - indeed, I have offered blind taste tests between my honey and supermarket brands and the preference has always been at least 80% in favour of my honey. Children seem to occasionally prefer the supermarket brands - perhaps it's the blander taste that finds favour with their taste buds ..I would hesitate to suggest that these products do sometimes taste 'sweeter'.

The issue I have is own label brands that are claiming to be honey but at the price points they are pitched then they are either not honey or they are being produced under such exploitative conditions within the countries where they originate that they should be questioned on ethical grounds.

None of this really affects my sale of honey . I'm a hobbyist .. I sell my honey to support my hobby at a price premium above the vast majority of supermarket brands. My existing, discerning, customers KNOW I sell a product that is unadulterated, not unduly processed and which provides them with a taste experience above and beyond anything they can expect on the local supermarket shelves .. they will buy those to cook with ... mine, they buy for the taste and some of them for the belief that local honey is doing them good; whilst I never put forward this aspect of local honey - I would be foolish not to accept the opinions of those who feel it helps their healh and wellbeing.

Clearly, I don't believe in negative marketing and I won't disparage branded supermarket honeys - I simply tell new customers that my honey may TASTE different - and they usually concur once they have tried my honey. I explain how my honey gets from bee to jar and how little it is processed and I differentiate my product from the supermarket offerings.

I think most hobbyist and small scale beefarmers will have a similar attittude - we are not competing with the big boys... I dislike the connotations it provides but we are artisan producers.

The question I have and let's leave it outside of the honey labelling regulations ... is how do you adequately differentiate on a label how our honey is different to the processed, consolidated, blended and fine filtered offerings in the supermarkets ?

I accept that your market requires you to uphold the integrity of the packers you sell to .,. and I am not in any way questioning that position or disparaging their product. However, if you feel that additions in our labels such as Raw or Artisan or similar descriptive terms are disparaging the products found on supermarket shelves how do you suggest we put forward the nature of our honey on a label without resorting to a fold out label with a page of small print. Honey on its own does seem to be a slightly inadequate descriptive ?

Simply pushing the local aspect is enough IMHO. I tell my customers, and vendors (given a display notice) where, within reason, the apiaries that supply their honey are.
My son is an SEO expert and 'local honey' is one of the most relevant search terms for us on Google. Raw is there on the list, but is not searched as much as you would suspect. 'Cheap local honey' is nowhere be seen as a search term.