Home > How do you know that your honey is what it says it is?

Honey is a natural complex mixture of different sugars produced entirely by bees, with nothing added or taken away. It’s on breakfast tables across the country, ready to be stirred into porridge or poured onto yogurt – but how do you know that the honey you’re putting on your toast is what it says it is?

There are strict laws in place which set high standards for the composition and labelling of honey products on sale in the UK. Local authorities are responsible for the enforcement of food law and the FSA issues advice to ensure consistency in approach across the country.

The risk of honey fraud:

While there is no evidence that any honey on sale in the UK is unsafe, it is a product that can be at risk of fraud. Products which declare a premium status, have a high price by weight, have complex supply chains or are subject to a spike in demand, can be particularly vulnerable to fraudsters.

Some honey products will fall into one or more of these categories. This may be due to their global supply chains or the premium status of high-value products such as manuka honey.

Testing the authenticity of honey:

With such a vast array of honey products available to consumers, no single test can definitively determine a product’s authenticity. However, there are a wide range of analytical methods that can be applied to honey to check its composition. This can be from well-established official methods to more recently developed advanced ‘fingerprinting’ tools such as those using nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR).

Detecting certain types of adulteration such as the addition of cane or beet sugars is challenging. This is especially true for beet sugar addition because bees generally forage on plants that use the same photosynthetic pathway as beet sugars. This makes it difficult for traditional tests based on isotopic differences to work.

This is where NMR can be helpful as a sophisticated analytical chemistry tool which can be used to provide a detailed chemical profile of a food. This profile is akin to a ‘chemical fingerprint’, specific to the sample, that has been tested and which can then be compared with the fingerprint from other sample results. This will allow us to see if they are consistent.

Honey traceability from beehive to jar:

However, interpretation of results depends on comparison against a reference database of authenticated samples, such as ones of known, verifiable origin and type.

To ensure it is robust, the reference database needs to be representative of the variation that can occur in a product such as honey. This includes differing beekeeping practices, different origins, seasonality and variations in climate. This should ideally be publicly available or available for scrutiny by all.

Because this is not always the case, the FSA recommends that local authorities do not take enforcement action on the basis of NMR results alone. Instead they should apply a weight of evidence approach.

This approach includes gathering information on product traceability – from beehive to jar – and results from any other testing that has been undertaken. This can also involve carrying out follow-up discussions with the relevant business.

Better understanding the honey supply chain:

We are working with partners across government to improve understanding and knowledge of honey testing methods and the honey supply chain amongst stakeholders.

Together with Defra we are exploring approaches which will provide additional assurance for testing methods such as NMR which rely on underpinning databases. We will also be supporting further work on guidance for applying a weight of evidence approach.

As always, consumers are at the heart of everything we do. Our aim is to maintain consumer confidence, reassure businesses involved in honey supply chains and reduce any risk of food fraud.

We are continuing to work together with the honey industry to ensure that the honey you enjoy is safe, authentic and what it says it is.

For more information, please Chat with us Ask The Expert.