Introduction
- Honey is tha natural sweet substance produced by bees (Apis mellifera) from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in honeycombs to ripen and mature.
- The colour and flavour of honeys differ depending on the nectar source, age, and storage conditions. Honey made primarily from the nectar of one type of flower is called monofloral honey, whereas honey made from several types of flowers is called polyfloral honey.
- Monofloral honey typically has a high commercial value in the marketplace due to its distinctive flavour. However, most commercially available honey is a blend of honeys differing in floral source and geographic origin.
- The composition of honey is rather variable and depends primarily on its floral and geographical source, but certain external factors, such as processing, packaging and storage conditions, also play an important role.
- Sugars are the main components of honey. The nectar and honeydew, respectively, are transformed into honey by the bee enzymes diastase (amylases) and invertase (a- glucosidase) during storage and maturation in the beehive. During this process, diastase and invertase catalyse the conversion of the sugars of nectar and honeydew into fructose and glucose, the main constituents of honey. The result is a complex mixture made up of about 70% monosaccharides and 10-15% disaccharides composed of glucose and fructose with the glycosidic bond in different positions and configurations. In addition, there are also minor components consisting of about 25 oligosaccharides.
Legislation and honey market
- The FAO/WHO Codex Alimentarius issued STAN 12-1981 (/ast modified in 2022), which outlines the provisions related to the naming, chemical properties, level of contaminants, and labelling of honey, among other characteristics.
- The European Council Directive 2001/110/EC defines honey and establishes minimum quality standards for honey when placed on the market as honey or used as an ingredient in products intended for human consumption
- Directive 2014/63/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council amended Directive 2001/110/EC with (amongst others) respect to labelling of origin and the clarification that pollen is a natural constituent of honey.
- Directive (EU) 2024/1438 of the European Parliament and of the Council amended Directive 2001/110/EC with (ampongst others) respect to the labelling of origin: the individual countries of origin must be stated on the label unless the honey is a blend from more than four countries and the four largest shares are more than half of the mass. The directive also established the honey platform tasked with gathering data for methods to improve authenticity, provide trecommendations for a traceability system, recommendations to potentially update composition criteria and advise on the need of an EU Reference laboratory
- European apiculture is a niche sector of agricultural production and is dominated by nonprofessional beekeepers. Overall, EU honey production has been increasing slowly with annual variations depending on climatic conditions. However, keeping this level of production is becoming harder for beekeepers due to the challenges they face in terms of bees' health and environmental constraints.
- With a production of around 250 000 tonnes per year in 2015, the EU is the second largest producer of honey after China. Other main honey producers are Turkey with a steady output increase, Ukraine and the United States of America.
- On a global scale the EU is the largest importer of honey as the EU production covered only ca. 60% of its consumption in 2015. The three main honey producers in the Union are Romania, Spain and Germany. Other important producing Member States are Hungary, France, Greece, and Poland.
- In 2015, the EU imported around 200 000 tonnes of honey, representing in volume around 75% of EU total production. Half of these imports came from China (around 100 000 tonnes). The other two main suppliers were Mexico and Ukraine.
- Honey imported from third countries is much cheaper than honey produced in the EU. In 2015, the average import unit price for Chinese honey was 1.64 €/kg while the average EU price of multi-floral honey sold in bulk at wholesalers was 3.78 €/kg. Due to higher production costs EU producers can hardly compete with imported honey.
Honey adulteration
- Adulteration by sweeteners is one of the most important authenticity issues. The simplest way to adulterate honey involves the addition of sugar (syrups) directly to honey.
- Honey adulteration has evolved from the basic addition of sucrose and water to specially produced syrups which mimic the sugar composition of natural honey. For instance, the addition of fructose or industrial glucose could change the fructose /glucose ratio, which has to be 1 – 1.2 in pure honey. Moreover, some other carbohydrate ratios could be used to ascertain honey authenticity.
- Indirect adulteration by feeding of sugar (syrups) during the main nectar flow period is the second way to adulterate honey; correct beekeeping practice should ensure that sweeteners used to feed bees do not adulterate honey. Indirect adulteration is extremely
difficult to detect.
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| Originally Published | Last Updated | 19 Aug 2025 | 10 Oct 2025 |
| Knowledge service | Metadata | Food Fraud and Quality | Food Fraud |
| Digital Europa Thesaurus (DET) | Foodfood fraudhoney |