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  • Page | Last updated: 27 Aug 2025
Frequency of honey adulteration

Adulteration of honey is widespread. Two coordinated control plans showed that a considerable fraction of honey on the market in the EU or imported into the EU is suspected of being adulterated

Food Fraud and Quality

The JRC was involved in two coordinated activities to assess the frequency of honey adulteration

 

Coordinated control plan of 2015-2017

  • Timing: 2015-2017
  • Samples: 2264 samples from all EU member states plus Norway and Switzerland
  • Methods: samples that were compliant with the purity criteria of Tier 1 (organoleptic analysis, electrical conductivity, diastase activity and pollen analysis ) and had a compliant sugar profile were tested by isotope ratio mass spectrometry to detect adulteration with syrups from C4 plants and C3  plants
  • Outcome: The rate of suspicious honeys was around 14 %. Around 20 % of honeys either declared as blends of EU honeys (19 out of 96), or unblended honeys bearing a geographical reference related to an EU Member State (53 out of 275) or a third country (11 out of 55) were found to be suspicious of containing added sugar. The rate of suspicious honeys was around 10% for blends of EU and non-EU honeys (40 out of 426), blends of non-EU honeys (3 out of 30), and honey of unknown origin (1 out of 11).

Read the full report here

 

Coordinated action 2021-2022

  • Timing: 2021-2022
  • Samples: 320 samples taken at EU borders
  • Methods: Compared to 2015/2016, a wider range of methds was used. The methods used were  isotope ratio mass spectrometry (EA/LC-IRMS), high-performance anion exchange chromatography - pulsed amperometric detector (HPAEC-PAD), liquid chromatography - high resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) and proton nuclear magnetic resonance ( 1 H-NMR) spectroscopy
  • Outcome: The rate of suspicious samples considerably higher than the one obtained in 2015-17 (14%). The highest absolute number of suspicious consignments originated from China (74%), although honey originating from Turkey had the highest relative proportion of suspicious samples (93%). Honey imported from the United Kingdom had an even higher suspicion rate (100%), likely the result of honey produced in other countries and further blended in the UK before its re-export to the EU.More than half (57%) of the operators had exported honey consignments suspicious of being adulterated with extraneous sugars and more than 60% (66), of the operators imported at least one suspicious consignment.

Read more: Description of the coordinated action