The adulteration of honey, the adsorbent resin

Common products like milk, olive oil and honey are the top manipulated foods in the world. Although, the fraudulent honey is not a direct threat to public health, it is a unfair practices. There are clear adulterations, which any connoisseur of the product will detect when consuming it, and others that are less clear. However, the victims are always the same, the producers and the final consumer. The best way to avoid this is to know the product well and to demand better controls from our government in the fight against adulteration of honey.

Summary: Honey is one of the top fraudulent foods in the world. The objective is clear, to obtain much cheaper honeys in order to multiply profits. The technology used is becoming more and more sophisticated. For this reason, all the honeys we sell in our shop in Las Rozas de Madrid are from top quality beekeepers, who offer us a great variety, such as: orange blossom, lavender, rosemary, thymey, thyme…

Other interesting articles: Where to buy pure or raw quality honey.

1. High technology in the adulteration of honey

At the end of February 2016, the American Honey Producers Association received an official letter from the US government authorities. This letter confirmed the application of “resin technology”. This technology is being used for the adulteration of honey, thus unfair competition for domestic beekeepers.

According to this letter, the use of this technology is currently being used in honeys of very diverse origin and very deteriorated in order to put them on the market and to lower prices. This letter also denounces that the honeys that have been subjected to this process should not be labelled and sold as honey.

Resin technology’ is a process of adulteration of honey that has been used for the last few years to hide its origin and eliminate any trace of contamination and antibiotics.

Photo 1: Beehives with snow on top

The American honey industry is very much aware of the serious damage that the use of this technology is causing in this sector, causing the collapse of honey prices worldwide. Over the last few years, honey prices have only fallen, falling by 40 to 50% from their previous levels.

a) Caused problems

The collapse of honey prices causes great damage in many different sectors: firstly, local beekeepers have to work for ridiculously low prices or end up abandoning beekeeping, secondly, honest importers and packagers see how they cannot compete by selling national and quality honeys, and thirdly, it creates environmental and food chain problems, as we will now see in some depth.

The disappearance of beekeeping endangers agriculture and its production, as honey bees are the vital pollinators of crops. Many people believe that a disappearance of honey bees is automatically replaced by wild bees and other insects, but this is not the case, as it happens in regions of China or in the fields of California almond trees in the United States, crops are left unpollinating due to lack of pollinators and flowers can not bear fruit by not fertilizing. Extending this situation to the rest of the planet would lead to a catastrophe.

As far as food safety is concerned, these adulterations of honey cause serious risks for the population, since they hide their origins and, in the event of possible poisoning, they cannot find the source of the problem.

The adsorbent resin process is a legal process that is used in different types of foods to eliminate antibiotics and contaminants, but in honey it is a fairly innovative process. Chinese manufacturing companies began to offer this technological process of honey openly and aggressively to producers and exporters 2 or 3 years ago.

2. Advantages of this technology in the handling of honey

This technology offers the following advantages:

1. It masks the origin of honey and cannot be discovered with the scientific methods and methodologies currently employed.
2. It eliminates not only pollen, but also antibiotics and residues found in honey, thus reducing any risk to importers, exporters and packers in their marketing.
3. Eliminates any chemical components that color the honey, allowing tropical and semi-tropical countries to export a large amount of white honey.
4. Eliminates chemical components that add flavor and aroma to honey, allowing you to customize its aroma and flavor to the taste of the seller, ie you can sell the honey a la carte, mixing it with pollen and aromas you want.

According to the manufacturers, producers and sellers of adosrbente resin (Resin technology), this process was approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), making it a legal and permitted activity.

However, the FDA has also notified that this honey going through these processes should not be labelled as honey, i.e. it should be labelled differently.

Photo 2: Honey direct from the beekeeper

3. Home methods of detecting adulteration

Nowadays, videos are appearing on social networks. In this way, some people are showing how to detect adulteration of products, including honey, in a very easy way. Here we would like to warn you about these simple methods, which are actually useless.

a) Genetic memory

On the internet you can see videos of how honey, if you move it around, ends up drawing the cells of the hive. However, the same thing happens with some types of adulterated honey.

This method consists of pouring a little honey into a container. Then pour water into it and shake this pot in all directions, until a kind of visual structure resembling honey cells is formed.

b) Crystallisation of honey

Many people believe that if honey is crystallised, it is clearly quality honey. On the contrary, we can find crystallised honey that has been adulterated and that has different origins than the nectar collected by the bees. However, the fact that it is crystallised is an indication that the honey must be of high quality.

Therefore, if the adulteration of natural products were so easy to discover, nobody would do it.

c) Air bubble

Another method is to observe how the air bubble rises when the honey jar is turned upside down. According to some videos, if the bubble rises slowly, the honey is of good quality. This method is very unreliable, and cannot always be done. It is unreliable because if the honey is freshly bottled, or is a type of honey with a lower viscosity such as acacia honey, the honey will rise very quickly. On the other hand, darker honeys with lower water concentration will bubble more slowly. However, this does not mean that one or the other is better.

Moreover, if the honey is adulterated, the bubble may also rise slowly or quickly. Therefore, this method is not reliable.

4. Ban on adulterated honey

The Valencian Farmers’ Association, Ava-Asaja, is asking the European Union to take action. Consequently, to stop the entry of Chinese honeys that do not meet the requirements that define a honey in Europe. In this way, adulterated honey does not enter the EU and is produced using artificial methods.

European laws do not allow the adulteration of honey by human intervention. Therefore, the maturation and dehydration process must be done only by the bees. In China, on the other hand, the adulteration of honey by means of artificial and human-directed dehydration is allowed.

According to COPA-COGECA, a group of associations of which Aaja is a member, 90% of all the honey that comes to us from China is produced using these artificial methods. Therefore this is not honey, but another similar product.

Two years ago, in 2019, Chinese honey was reaching 1.25 euros per kilo, a much lower price than Spanish honey, which is around 4 euros per kilo. Therefore, a very appetizing business for unscrupulous entrepreneurs.

From El Cortijuelo San Benito we ask the national and European authorities to find a solution to this problem. Consequently, this problem is causing enormous damage to our beekeepers and to the European environment.

Sources:

Publication of the American Association of Beekeepers:  http://www.ahpanet.com/ Adulteration of honey and other common products