Half of the honey imported into the EU is adulterated

Honey is actually bee spit: the hard-working worker bees fill their stomachs with flower nectar, regurgitate the juice in the hive and thus sweeten our lives.

The natural product was already looted in the Stone Age. Today, however, honey does not have as much to do with nature as it used to. Liquid gold is one of the most counterfeited foodstuffs. For the simple reason that honey is easy to dilute due to its high sugar content, for example with sugar beet syrup.

Although stretching is banned in the EU and Switzerland, it still occurs. According to studies, the European Commission assumes that almost half of all honey imports are stretched. This assumption is based on a study by the Commission’s scientific service. 46 percent of the samples indicated contamination. Products from Britain, Turkey and China showed the highest levels of contamination.

Neither the Europeans nor the Swiss can do without imports. Almost as much honey is imported into the EU as bees produce on the continent. Demand can be met even less in Switzerland: two-thirds come from abroad. There is a reason for this: with an average consumption of 1.2 kilograms per capita, the Swiss are among the world’s top honey lovers, according to Agroscope.

After the US, the EU is the largest importer. Foodwatch estimates that of the 175,000 tonnes of honey imported into the EU each year, about 80,000 are contaminated – mainly with syrup made from rice, wheat or sugar beets. An amount that usually remains undiscovered in the laboratory, writes the association, which is committed to the quality of food.

The honey is stretched so that it can be sold in large quantities at lower prices. The price difference between natural honey and sugar syrup makes fraud “very attractive”, according to the European Commission.

The counterfeiting is not only a problem for the EU, but especially for regional beekeeping. “Adequate management has become impossible in beekeeping,” says Thomas Hock, chairman of the Rhineland-Palatinate beekeepers’ association, to the “Spiegel”. Beekeepers have long complained about the sticky trade. Their fear: cheap imports will plunge regional beekeeping into the abyss.

The Honey Working Group, made up of major EU agricultural umbrella organizations, estimates that up to five million hard-working bees could be lost with the “destruction of the livelihoods of European commercial beekeepers”.

The cries of science are being heard. The EU now wants to act against counterfeiting. A new law aims to better monitor the marketing of foods such as honey. To create more transparency, more precise designations of origin are planned. From now on it must be recognizable when honey from a non-EU country is imported into the EU.

But with this flap, the EU only kills a fly – or rather half a bird. After all, a label with the country of origin does not show whether the product is contaminated. Anyone who prefers natural honey should therefore opt for a domestic or European product. But: the natural product is not always natural. Honey is often contaminated with pesticides.

Blaise Mulhauser, director of the botanical garden of the city of Neuchâtel, explains the problem with the pesticides to the specialist newspaper Schweizer Bauer: “If the substances enter the hive with the nectar, it means that the entire colony, including the queen, lifelong exposure to these neurotoxins.”

And pesticides threaten not only human health, but also bee colonies. The toxins affect their sense of direction and weaken their immune systems, making it difficult for the bees to survive.