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“Honey adulteration is a serious problem affecting the entire beekeeping industry around the world. Whether you are a small beekeeper selling only locally or exporting world wide, it lowers the price expectations by consumers. It is one of the major issues making beekeeping very difficult,” says Dr Peter Awram, a second generation beekeeper. Peter is also the CEO of Worker Bee Honey where he has been an early adopter of Nectar’s technologies, and Authentic Food Solutions where he works to combat honey adulteration.
Honey adulteration is economically motivated and happens when pure honey has fillers or cheaper sweeteners added. One of the most popular adulteration methods involves mixing honey with rice syrup, and China is often singled out as a main perpetrator although this is happening everywhere. Nectar understands how difficult it is for its client beekeepers to compete with the low price point of adulterated honey that poses as the real thing. The fraud also impacts consumers, as adulterated honey does not have the same health benefits or taste as authentic honey.
Through Authentic Food Solution’s ISO-certified testing laboratory, Peter is dedicated to the analysis of honey using magnetic resonance spectroscopy very similar to the magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) used in health care . He’s using the images he captures to build a database of authentic honey magnetic resonance profiles to combat adulteration fraud.
“Magnetic resonance is a very useful scientific technique that allows us to find out far more information than any other techniques that have been used for analyzing honey. Instead of looking at just a couple components of the honey, you’re looking at the whole thing. It’s almost like taking a fingerprint because you’re able to see all the identifying characteristics of the honey. The method is also much faster and cheaper than existing methods,” says Peter.
In addition to combating fraud, Peter sees honey authentication as a marketing tool and a way to add value to the product. “One of the biggest problems we’ve been facing is you cannot market honey as just a sweetener. There are simply too many other cheap and easily-procured options available. Instead we’ve had more success with emphasizing the other features of honey. It’s natural. It’s the only completely natural sweetener out there.” Authenticated honey could even open up other markets as the technique can detect the presence or absence of GMOs. You are providing verification to the customer that you are also giving them a high quality product inside each jar.
Peter also recommends using the technique to promote your honey’s unique characteristics. “One of the big questions a beekeeper always gets is where did your honey come from? What flower is it actually from? Sure, if you know something specific is blooming you will have a good idea, but once you get into wilder areas with no big crops, you don’t really know what you’re looking for. However, we are finding specific floral markers using magnetic resonance. In the future we hope to even be able to give people an idea of how much each flower contributed”
Peter sees potential in record-keeping technology, like Nectar’s BeeTrack App, adding value to the honey as well. “Now you can track your hives, and you can figure out where they’re from. When we merge that with the data from the honey, you’ll be able to narrow down the region. You can use that as a marketing tool to show that this isn’t any old honey, this is honey from these specific flowers from this unique region. BeeTrack could allow you to show your customers exactly where the honey came from.” Traceability is becoming a huge issue in the food industry and electronic tracking and lab analysis are going to be requirements for all food producers very soon. Large grocery stores and packers are moving more and more to verifiable and sustainable sourcing.
In the future, Peter envisions the average consumer becoming a “honey connoisseur” in the same way people enjoy tasting wine. Using magnetic resonance testing, beekeepers could market their honey as “Authentic Blueberry” or “Authentic Goldenrod”, or even from a specific area - for example “Authentic Western Canada”. Peter says that these types of labels add value to the product in the eyes of consumers. He adds, “The consumer can decide to try blueberry honey one day, and dandelion the next; and really discover the unique flavours. This sets our high-quality honey apart because we don’t want to be seen as just a sweetener - that’s a losing goal for beekeepers.”
Are you interested in authenticating your honey? Nectar is committed to supporting Peter in his mission to make this the industry standard, and it has benefits for both the beekeeper and the consumer. The first step is to purchase an authentication test so you can start marketing your honey as authentic. “We’re working on authentic seals that you can use to show that you’re working to change the problem,” says Peter.
Another way to combat honey fraud is to submit honey samples for the creation of the honey database to serve as an authentic standard of honey. This process requires specific methodology so it can be certified as 100% authentic honey. “The absolute best sample is taken by a professional, someone like a government inspector, directly from the hive,” Peter says. He’s developed an app which allows extra information to be tied to the honey, including GPS coordinates, time and date, and photos of the surrounding area. He adds, “Part of all this chain of custody tracking is getting back to the fraud issues. We need very good identification of the sample and how it’s obtained because we need to be able to certify the source as well as we can.”
Peter is passionate about expanding the Honey database, and the Nectar Technologies team is behind him to support honest beekeeping. “The more samples we can get, the better,” Peter says. “Beekeepers need to contact their local organizations and say that they think it’s something worthwhile for the organization to get involved in. Please let your organizations know that you want to be a part of this systematic collection of samples.”
Peter believes that all beekeepers worldwide would benefit from authenticating their honey. “I want to show people that in addition to combating fraud, it’s a way of adding value and making this a worthwhile industry to be in.”
To learn more about Dr Peter Awram’s work, or get involved in his authentication project, visit his website at www.truehoney.buzz or send him an email at info@truehoney.buzz
