Bitter taste: U.K. beekeepers and scientists struggle to put a lid on honey fraud

Lynne Ingram cuts a peaceful figure as she tends to a row of humming beehives in a leafy corner of Somerset, southwest England.

But the master beekeeper, who has been keeping hives for more than 40 years, has found herself in a fight against a tricky and evolving foe — honey fraudsters.

The practice of adulterating honey is well known, and adulterants such as ash and potato flour have been historically used.

Now, advancements in technology and science have made it much easier, with “bespoke, designer or bioengineered” syrups used as diluting agents capable of fooling authenticity tests, Ms. Ingram said.

She founded the U.K. Honey Authenticity Network (HAN U.K.) in 2021 to raise awareness about natural honey and warn of the threat posed by fraud.

“One of the impacts we are seeing all over the world is beekeepers going out of business,” she said.

Adulterated honey can be sold to retailers for a price several times lower than genuine producers can afford.

As well as producing their own honey, many larger-scale beekeepers have crop pollination contracts with farmers, delivering thousands of colonies to growers across the country.

If they go out of business due to unfair competition, this vital natural method of pollinating crops is reduced and food production suffers.

‘Recognise risk’

The British Beekeepers Association, which represents more than 25,000 producers and where Ms. Ingram is a honey ambassador, wants the risk of fraud to be recognised to protect the industry and consumers.

In May, the European Union updated its honey regulations to ensure clearer product labelling and a “honey traceability system” to increase transparency.

On the labelling for blended honeys, for example, all countries of origin are now required to appear near a product’s name, where previously it was only mandatory to state whether blending had occurred. Labelling in the U.K., which has now left the EU, is not as stringent and Ms. Ingram believes consumers are “being misled” by vague packaging.

Behind the EU action is an apparent increase in adulterated honey arriving in the 27-nation bloc.

Substandard adulterates can have adverse effects on consumers’ health, such as raising the risk of diabetes, obesity, and liver or kidney damage.

Between 2021 and 2022, 46% of the honey tested as it entered the EU was flagged as potentially fraudulent, up from 14% in the 2015-17 period. Of the suspicious consignments, 74% were of Chinese origin.

Honey imported from the U.K. had a 100% suspicion rate. The EU said this honey was probably produced in third countries and blended again in the U.K. before being sent to the bloc.

The U.K. is the second largest importer of honey in terms of volume in the whole of Europe. China is its top supplier. Not all of the U.K.’s imported honey leaves the country, however. Considerable quantities stay on the domestic market. “We think there is an awful lot of it on the shelves,” said Ms. Ingram, adding that adulterated honey was “widely available” in big supermarkets.

Behind the closed blinds of a research laboratory at Aston University in Birmingham, central England, researchers fighting honey fraud are harnessing cutting-edge technology.

Aston scientists and beekeepers, including Ms. Ingram, are using light to reveal the contents of honey samples at the molecular level.

The technique — known as Fluorescence Excitation-Emission Spectroscopy — involves firing lasers into samples. The light frequencies re-emitted are then collated into a three-dimensional image — or “molecular fingerprint” — of the honey tested.

Ms. Ingram said the test could close international gaps in testing methods by establishing a unified standard, but the government needed to monitor the sector too. “We really need to get to grips with this,” she said.