Validating honey authenticity claims with regards to botanical source or geographical origin is a global issue. An EU Coordinated Control Plan on honey adulteration indicated that 38% of the 2,264 honey samples examined in the EU were non-compliant with authenticity criteria.
The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) convened a Technical Round Table on Honey Authentication on 25 January 2018 to help in the fight against food fraud.
The meeting was opened by the Director of the JRC, Elke Anklam and was chaired by Franz Ulberth (Head of Fraud Detection and Prevention at JRC). It was attended by approximately 45 delegates from EU member States and included policy officials, academic researchers, Official Control Laboratory scientists, industry scientists and the Chairman of the UK Honey Association. Selvarani Elahi, Michael Walker and John Warren, from the UK Government Chemist team, attended and contributed to the meeting.
The meeting identified many technical areas where further work and clarity would be beneficial for the authentication of honey. These will be covered in a forthcoming note from the JRC.