Honey Fraud in the News

At Sweetwater labs in Missouri a series of tests in 2019 were run on various off the shelf honey brands

A suit has been filed in the US District Court in Pennsylvania on false labelling of honey. The suit appears to be based on the high levels of HMF that were found. This is an indication of excessive heating of the the honey which results in alteration of the basic components of honey. 

While we are seeing rates of 20+ percent in some parts of the world.  Tests in other areas can be even worse.

South Africa has seen as much as 75% of the honey that has been tested as fraudulent and this was using the C4 test that doesn't detect rice syrup. Extensive testing is going to be the only way to stop this. It is far too easy to get starch syrups these days. And local doesn't necessarily mean safe any one can jump online and get it delivered. There often is some beekeeper that always has a great crop and never seems to run out of honey.

Jonathan Hache of the CFIA talks about how honey added to food products is one of the biggest problems with regard to syrup masquerading as honey. Read more here

The CFIA report from last week found over 20% of the samples they tested were adulterated.  These results mirror what have been seen in the European Union and in Australia. The CFIA needs to expand these analysis of Canadian honey further. 

At the end of 2018 a paper came out in Nature Scientific Reports detailing an analysis of a number of honey from Australia and New Zealand as well as from other parts of the world.  Well over 20% had indications of fraud using EA-IRMS.  Read more about the report here

The study, conducted by a team of scientists at Macquarie University, used 100 samples of honey sourced globally, including