Who we are and why we are doing this
Peter and his father, Jerry have been beekeeping in Canada for decades.
The expansion into honey fraud came as a result of Peter attending a talk in late 2016 that laid out just how extensive and pervasive honey adulteration had become. Their investigations into Magnetic Resonance demonstrated that it was superior to conventional techniques. After considerable research they went on to purchase one of the few machines in the world dedicated to honey analysis.
Now they are working to get samples of honey to generate a database of real and fake honey that can be used around the world to stop the fraud.
We have a problem.
More honey is being sold than is being made.
Honey is the third most adulterated food product worldwide. In 2018, it was ranked behind only milk and olive oil. The ease with which starches from corn and rice can be converted into sugars has resulted in a massive increase in adulteration of honey. Using export data, it has been shown that despite little change in hive numbers, some countries have more than doubled their export of so-called “honey”. That data suggests that 25 to 40% of what is called honey in the world is actually fake.
The Solution
Magnetic Resonance is different from the conventional honey testing methods. It looks at the entire sample, a unique signature for the honey.
If something is missing in the honey we can tell – if there is too much of something we can see that too and we can see this for hundreds of compounds.
We can see the specific molecules that are unique to the flowers. We can see how the soil and the weather the flowers grew in affected the honey. This can’t be faked using current technology.
Blog
Keep up with the latest news and articles about honey, and other types of food fraud here
More than 1 in 5 Honey Samples Suspected of Adulteration in CFIA Surveillance Project
The CFIA conducted a targeted surveillance report on honey imported into Canada in 2018-2019. A total of 240 samples of honey were collected from a variety of sources, including but not limited to importers, distributors,
How Bees Survive the Cold Winter Months
Have you ever wondered what happens to bees in the winter? As temperatures drop in the winter, insects can no longer maintain the body temperatures required for biological processes such as metabolism. To prevent death,
Why Food Fraud can be Bad for your Health
Food fraud, as stated by Michigan State University is "the deliberate and intentional substitution, addition, tampering, or misrepresentation of food, food ingredients, or food packaging; or false or misleading statements made about a product, for
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