Authentic Food Solutions continues to partner with Dr. Leonard Foster and his lab at UBC to develop a test that can identify authentic, Canadian honey. While there are existing tests to monitor honey authenticity, such as those used by the CFIA, these tests suffer from two major shortfalls. First, the library of honey samples used as a reference does not, in our opinion, have a large enough representation of Canadian honeys. Second, the development of newer and more advanced sugar additives by fraudsters are allowing some adulterated honey samples to pass through current testing methods undetected. Thanks to the generous funding contributed from the British Columbia Honey Producers Association (BCHPA)  and the Canadian Honey Council we have been able to secure additional funding through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) and Alberta’s Results-Driven Agriculture Research agencies.

Using honey samples submitted by Canadian beekeepers, we have been expanding our library of the “chemical fingerprints” of authentic Canadian honey. These “fingerprints” will be used as the basis for a test that can identify adulterated honey – such as those that have diluted real honey with sugar-syrups or have added essential oils to artificially alter the scent or taste of the honey.

As the library continues to grow with the addition of more and more representative Canadian honey samples the test will be able to identify the region the honey was produced in as well as the floral source used by the bees!

If you are a Canadian beekeeper and are interested in sending us some of your authentic honey, please contact us at info@truehoney.buzz