U.S. Honey Integrity Task Force Publishes Quality Results On Top 30 Brands

Photo by Roberta Sorge on Unsplash

AOC is working to restore our significant archives on the topic of bees and the dangers of global bee collapse. Moving from the sweet story of survival around Notre Dame’s honey bees and the beekeepers of Paris, we’re reading Bee Culture: The Magazine of American Beekeeping.

Bee Culture shares an update on the work of America’s Honey Integrity Task Force, whose purpose is to insure the integrity of products sold as ‘pure honey’. The Economist reported in August 2018 that America’s taste for honey “is nectar for con men.”

America’s per person honey consumption has doubled since the 1990s. Despite the increased demand, in 2016 American bees produced 73,000 tons of honey, or 35% less than they did 20 years ago.  Enter the con men. According to the US Pharmacopeia’s Food Fraud Database, honey is now the third-most adulterated food, behind milk and olive oil.

Enter the Honey Integrity Task Force, which tested the 30 top-selling honey products sold in US grocery stores, determined by Nielsen. These brands account for approximately 40 percent of the honey sold in the U.S. retail market.  Read the PR release for details of how the study was conducted.

Of the 28 products that were labeled at retail locations as pure honey, the tests from both labs confirmed the samples were not adulterated. Two of the 30 products were actually labeled as honey blends, not pure honey. Both labs correctly identified them as “adulterated.”