A new EU Commission-led analysis shows that a significant proportion of honey imported into the trade bloc is suspected to be fraudulently adulterated with added syrups.

The EU imports around 40% of its honey, with low-priced imports from China, especially, pushing prices below cost of production for European producers.

The European Commission’s DG Sante, together with the national authorities of 18 countries that are part of the EU Food Fraud Network, the European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) and the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) investigated the quality of imported honey. The results showed that 46% of 320 samples of imported honey – taken randomly between November, 2021 and February, 2022 – were 'tampered with'.

The report stated that there was a 'strong suspicion that a large part of the honey imported from non-EU countries and found suspicious by the JRC of being adulterated, remained present and undetected on the EU market.'

While the testing method was insufficient to ascertain adulteration, it gives an idea that samples are 'suspicious to be adulterated' and thus not compliant with the EU’s Honey Directive. While the risk to human health is considered low, such practices defraud consumers and jeopardise EU producers who face unfair competition from products containing illicit, cheap ingredients.

The highest absolute number of suspicious consignments originated from China (74%), but honey originating from Turkey had the highest relative proportion of suspicious samples (93%).

Meanwhile, honey imported from the UK had an even higher suspicion rate (100%), which researchers said was likely the result of honey produced in other countries and further blended in the UK before being re-exported to the EU.