The Honey Scandal

There was an article at the weekend in The Observer which revealed that 24 out of 25 own label honeys from British supermarkets were found to be fake. That means they’re not honey but sugar syrup. It’s a massive scandal, but this isn’t the first time fake honey has been in the papers. Last year the EU tested 10 honeys all destined for British supermarket shelves and all of them were fake. This problem has existed for a long time but so far NOTHING has been done about it.

The supermarkets remain silent and the big packers protest that the tests aren’t reliable… So how are they testing their honey and how can they be sure of it’s authenticity?

Not only is this illegal and a massive betrayal to supermarket customers which creates distrust, it has also massively lowered the price that people expect to pay for honey and changed perceptions of what it tastes like, i.e. sugar. For any honey supplier who doesn’t import fraudulent honey this makes it so much harder to operate and offer people quality honey.

Trading standards have done nothing about this issue but have policed our operation very closely forcing us to remove the term “unpasteurised” and “raw” from our labels, two ways of us differentiating our honeys from those which are now proven to be adulterated. Is it a coincidence that the biggest honey packers in the UK at the centre of this scandal also work very closely with Trading Standards and DEFRA on making the legislation and protecting a corrupt system which is allowing this to continue?

We’re asking for way more independent testing on honey to begin to reverse the trend towards more and more cheap, fake honey and to get quality British honey back on the supermarket shelves. That’s why Black Bee Honey was founded and why we’ll continue to fight for British Beekeepers, their bees and the great honey they produce