Honey Counterfeiter
Beekeepers: Adulterated cheap honey remains a problem
Consumer advocates recommend buying German-produced honey. photo
© Klaus-Dietmar Gabbert/dpa
The EU wants more certainty about the origin and purity of honey. However, beekeepers continue to observe major consumer deception. The natural product is often diluted with sugar.
According to the German Professional and Commercial Beekeepers Association, adulterated honey with sometimes unclear information about its origin remains a major problem. The professional association had samples of honey from German supermarkets examined in the laboratory, said Vice President Bernhard Heuvel to the “Bild” newspaper. Accordingly, 25 of 30 samples were diluted with cheap sugar syrup.
“The counterfeits behind the ever-lower sales prices are so sophisticated that they are difficult to detect even in the laboratory,” said Heuvel. Now they want to put a stop to the organized honey counterfeiters. “We have joined forces with importers and the food trade, EU Commission, consumer protection, police and Europol involved.” Because the investigations are ongoing, the adulterated honey brands cannot yet be published.
In the future, the country of origin must be clearly identifiable
The problem has been known for a long time, and consumer advocates advise buying honey from German production. However, local honey only covers around 30 percent of Germany’s needs. The rest is imported and comes from China, Turkey, Ukraine or Romania.
The European Union reacted at the beginning of the year. In the future, the country of origin must be clearly stated on packaging. So far, honey mixtures only have to state whether it comes from the EU or not. In addition, it must become clear in the future how large the proportion of honey comes from each country. However, there is a transition period of around two years until the requirements are applied.
The consumer protection organization Foodwatch described the better regulation of origin as overdue. However, the rules were not enough to combat “honey cheating”. According to previous information from the Environment Committee in the EU Parliament, there should also be more border controls to take action against counterfeit honey. The EU Commission announced that it wanted to introduce harmonized analytical methods to detect honey that had been enriched with sugar.