Adulterated honey

Introversion

Pie aren't squared, pie are round!
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Your Fancy Honey Might Not Actually Be Honey

I'd heard about this a few years ago, but thought that a certification process had been put in place to prevent widespread fraud. Appears that this may not be true. :rant:

I don't use large quantities of honey, and I try to buy from local beekeepers when I do. Costs more, but at least I have some reason to believe that I'm actually buying honey that way?

Vice said:
...

But in a series of lawsuits filed over the last year, honey adulteration is finally being brought out of the shadows. Lawyers are finding consumers who have allegedly bought adulterated honey at their local grocery stores, and having the honey laboratory tested for proof. The accused in their complaints include major brands, and one of the dominant honey certification groups: True Source Honey, an organization that is supposed to guarantee where honey is sourced from so as to guarantee its quality.

"In my opinion, they've all been doing this for years," Kent Heitzinger, one of the lawyers said. "That's my gut feeling. And it's all about profits."

...

One group named more than once in their suits is True Source Honey, the honey certification organization. True Source was founded in 2010 in response to the influx of Chinese honey on the American market, even after the US government imposed tariffs on Chinese honey imports.

"This circumvented and mislabeled honey was being shipped into the United States at well below world market price, undercutting fair market pricing," said True Source's executive director, Gordon Marks. "Thus the need for an origin-based certification body to certify that the declared country of origin is in fact true."

...

Heitzinger said the actual number of bad actors operating under the True Source umbrella is unknown, but that he's tested many True Source-certified products and found evidence of adulteration. One honey they tested was so fermented from all the excess water added to dilute it "that in my opinion, you couldn't sell this to a minor because there's so much alcohol it would be illegal," Heitzinger said.

(In response, Marks said that "It has been our experience that any finding at a single laboratory should be verified by a second qualified laboratory.")

A lawsuit filed by Heitzinger and Bueller in August 2019 named a product from Barkman Honey, one of the largest honey packers in North America. The honey is called "Naked Wild Great Lakes Raw Honey" and is True Source certified. On its website, it's described as “Raw and Unfiltered” and as “100% Pure Raw Honey” on its label. Testing by Heitzinger suggested that it had been heated to higher than 105 degrees. The complaint states that if True Source did the kinds of rigorous monitoring they say they do, they would have discovered these issues themselves. “That it did not is evident that the True Source certification is false.”

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benbenberi

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Always buy local honey from local beekeepers. Support the hives and pollinators! Also, it's said that eating honey from the flowers in your area helps against pollen allergies in your area, so local wins again.
 

Enlightened

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Adulterated honey. This is a new one to me. Welcome to the world of turning a quick buck.