46% of honey imported into Europe suspected of fraud!
This recent revelation from the European Commission, published on March 23, 2023, details the results of the coordinated action against honey adulteration: "From the Hives" carried out by 18 EU Member States, under the leadership of the European Anti-Fraud Office (Olaf), between November 2021 and February 2022.
One objective: controlling the quality of imported honeys
Out of 320 samples of honey collected at the EU borders and analyzed by the Joint Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, 46% (i.e. 147) are strongly suspected of adulteration, in particular by sugar syrups made from beet, rice or wheat. This is a much higher rate than that obtained during a previous control action conducted in 2015: 14% (i.e. 17 non-compliances).
A large-scale control operation
The Directorate General for Health and Food Safety of the European Commission has coordinated a large-scale control operation with 16 European countries as well as Switzerland, Norway and Olaf. Honeys originating from China and Turkey are particularly pointed out by the study, with 74% of 89 Chinese honeys and 14 of 15 Turkish honeys considered suspicious.
This practice of adding exogenous sugars is prohibited. Indeed, honey naturally contains sugars and, according to the European legislation, must remain pure, that is to say that no ingredient can be added to it. Dishonest actors defraud consumers by adulterating honey, i.e. by adding ingredients such as cheap sugar syrups to increase the volume of honey. Nevertheless, this fraud does not pose a health risk to consumers. Indeed, the syrups used to reduce the price per kilo of honey are used in human food.
Eurofins expertise and support
This fraud of adding exogenous sugars in honey is known and is the most frequently observed. Thus, depending on the origin of the honeys you use as ingredients or that you distribute, it is advisable to regularly control their integrity via specific analyses proposed by our laboratories, which have worldwide databases and the necessary expertise to control authenticity.
Below are the methods recommended by our experts to check the integrity of your honeys:
- NMR profiling (broad and global screening)
- Liquid chromatography - High Resolution Mass Spectrometry (LC-HRMS)
- Carbon 13 analysis by isotope mass spectrometry
- Pollen microscopic analysis
For more information on the authenticity of your products, do not hesitate to consult the dedicated site here.
→ For more information, please contact your usual Eurofins contact person or AgroalimentaireFR@eurofins.com.
