Almost half of the honey imported into the EU is "falsified"

Published Apr 10, 2023

Tridge summary

An investigation by the EU has revealed that nearly half of the honey imported into the EU may be falsified and contains extraneous sugars. The investigation involved 44 EU market operators and found that 46% of the honey tested did not comply with the Honey Directive. The majority of the suspicious batches came from China, and food industry operators were urged to follow honey regulations. Beekeepers are calling for standardization of new methods to combat counterfeiting, as fraudsters are adapting to less sensitive authentication methods. The war and economic decline have had a significant impact on the beekeeping industry. Despite these challenges, Ukrainian beekeepers were able to collect a good honey harvest in 2022 and continue to export honey despite significant decreases in volume.

Disclaimer:The above summary was generated by Tridge's proprietary AI model for informational purposes.

Original content

An EU investigation has shown that almost half of the honey imported into the EU may be "falsified", and about 60% may contain extraneous sugars. Of the product tested as part of the investigation, 46% did not comply with the Honey Directive – EU legislation that defines what can be labeled as honey, just-food informs. EU legislation requires that nothing can be added to honey. But packers were found to be "adulterating" it by diluting or mixing it with sugar syrup to make the product cheaper and ensure consistency of flavor profiles. Follow the news in a convenient format: Follow us on Twitter The analysis also found that additives and dyes were added and pollen was removed to make the source of the honey more difficult to identify. Cindy Adolph, policy consultant for the European NGO BeeLife and the European Professional Beekeepers Association (EPBA), told Just Food that the results were not surprising. The market is really bad. In Great Britain, for example, it is no secret ...

Source: Landlord