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Honey is not just a single consistent substance. If so many top laboratories, scientists and regulators all agree that honey is being adulterated on a global scale, why are there so rarely prosecutions? The answer lies partly in the science, partly in the failure of regulators to understand and co-ordinate that science, but also in the nature of honey itself. Read more: Inside the takedown of Europe’s multi-billion pound eel mafia Wherever authorities look, it appears that a scandal is playing out on our supermarket shelves. The targeted samples were taken from a variety of importers, processors and retailers based on risk intelligence, unusual trading patterns and a history of non-compliance. In 2018, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency found in a targeted surveillance programme that 52 samples out of 240 (21.7 per cent) were “unsatisfactory” because of the detected presence of added sugars. In 2015, the European Commission's in-house science service, the Joint Research Centre, tested 893 samples of honey from retailers and found that 127 (14 per cent) were suspected of “containing added sugar syrups.” But tests by regulators have indicated widespread adulteration. Some figures in the honey industry claim allegations of fraud are exaggerated or unsubstantiated, and are fuelled by resentment of the low cost of production in China. They want urgent action to combat fake honey, with better labelling and improved testing techniques. But the European beekeeping industry says prices actually continued to fall because of the surging imports of suspected fraudulent honey from China. Such a slump in production should drive prices up. The most common fraud is the dilution of genuine honey with sugar syrup, typically manufactured from rice, corn or sugar beet.
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The industry provides a huge environmental benefit because three out of four crops depend to some extent on pollination by bees and other insects for yield and quality.įarming bees is, however, labour intensive, so honey is expensive – and that makes it a tempting target for adulteration with cheap substitutes. There are now more than 90 million managed beehives around the world producing about 1.9m tonnes of honey worth more than £5 billion a year. Research published in Nature in November 2015 found traces of beeswax on pieces of Neolithic crockery unearthed in Europe, the Middle East and North Africa. The price has now slumped to just 35 pesos per kilogram Virginia Pech Tukīeekeeping is one of the most ancient forms of farming, with archaeological evidence suggesting humans have been harvesting honey from bees for nearly 9,000 years. Five years ago, Moo Pat was paid 47 pesos (£1.73) per kilogram for his organic honey. Many of Mexico’s estimated 42,000 beekeepers – much of whose honey goes to Europe – are now giving up and abandoning their hives. The price for conventional honey has fallen even further, from 43 pesos per kilogram to just 23 pesos. I don’t even have enough money to pay for the fuel to go to see my bees.”įive years ago, Moo Pat, who is 42 and from the small Mexican town of Felipe Carrillo Puerto, was paid 47 pesos (£1.73) per kilogram for his organic honey by a local fair trade co-operative, but the price has now slumped to just 35 pesos per kilogram. “I think every day about profitability,” says Moo Pat “I have seen many beekeepers disappear in the last two or three years. But now making a livelihood is even tougher and his bees are at real risk – not from pesticides or deforestation, but from a catastrophic collapse in the wholesale price of honey. He drives six miles through low-lying tropical jungle to tend to his 30 hives nestled in a clearing. Shortly before dawn most days, José Eduardo Moo Pat sets out from his home in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula with a protective suit and his metal smoker for calming honey bees.