Update January 21, 2025: The City of Vienna's Market Office (MA59) is currently on the hunt for counterfeit honey from abroad. Official samples are being taken and sent to AGES - the Austrian Agency for Health and Food Safety - for testing. When taking samples, a commercial invoice must be presented to prove the source of the honey and how it is billed. At Welthonig, the inspectors have decided to test the famous Manuka honey. Four 250g jars are being tested for their ingredients in the laboratory. An additional four jars have been officially sealed and are available for cross-sampling if needed.
We are pleased that the authorities in Vienna and Austria are now responding to the reports and actually taking action against counterfeiting. We are happy to support them in this endeavor!
Original text from December 17, 2024: Reports of adulterated honey have been circulating for days. TV and newspapers report almost daily on the alarming laboratory results of honey tests. In Germany, up to 80% of supermarket honey could be adulterated or manipulated. And many players active in the German honey market are also active in Austria. Therefore, it can be assumed that the results for Austria will be similarly poor.
But adulteration is not a new phenomenon!
This topic has been coming up regularly for years, but unfortunately, there are few antidotes to criminal adulteration. When we opened our honey business in 2016, we became aware of counterfeit honey. At that time, the high-priced Manuka honey was particularly affected by counterfeiting. Criminals labeled syrup and inferior honey with Manuka labels and circulated them as premium honey. Anyone familiar with the prices of Manuka honey knows how enormous the profit margins are for the fraudsters.
Since then, reports of counterfeit honey have continued apace. Currently, the cheap discount honey on supermarket shelves is suspected of being fake. Anyone who browses Chinese marketplaces and uses keywords like "honey," "syrup," "glucose for honey," or "honey fructose" will find industrial suppliers in China, Vietnam, Turkey, and Cambodia offering the corresponding raw materials for honey adulteration. They even have papers for import into the EU!
With prices between EUR 1 and 3 per tonne of chemicals, it is no surprise that greedy bandits are making diligent use of the offers and importing them into the EU on a large scale, labelling them and offering them on the market.
But the consumer, the buyer of honey, also bears some of the blame. Unfortunately, many people still believe that honey, above all, has to be cheap. We know from our own experience that there are buyers who have a price of €10 per kilo in mind and don't want to pay more than that. And in reality, discount stores and supermarkets do nothing more than make these bargain hunters a deal: Buy my honey because it's cheap! The question of adulteration doesn't even arise.
And because honey fraud has been an issue in our company from the very beginning, there are principles that we strictly adhere to in our daily operations to prevent the door from being opened to counterfeiters.
Why we don’t sell adulterated honey:
- We buy honey only from beekeepers, we do not buy honey from dealers or other sources
- Each honey jar contains the name and address of the beekeeper, so that the supply chain is traceable
- Whenever possible, we visit the beekeepers ourselves to check the quality and workmanship (e.g., we have an invitation from a beekeeper in Sweden whom we plan to visit in 2025).
- We do not have honey "mixture of EU and non-EU countries" in our assortment
- Welthonig is an organic farm and we are controlled by the Market Office / MA59 of the City of Vienna and by Austria Bio Garantie GmbH
By the way, wine, olive oil, and honey are among the most counterfeited foods worldwide. Counterfeits are easy and cheap to produce and difficult to detect.
Sources & selected reports:
Die Presse, December 17, 2024, DNA test reveals: A lot of adulterated honey in Austria's supermarkets, link to the online article -> https://www.diepresse.com/19183912/dna-test-deckt-auf-viel-gepanschter-honig-in-oesterreichs-supermaerkten
ORF.at Upper Austria from December 17, 2024, New directive against adulterated honey, link to the online article -> https://ooe.orf.at/stories/3285705/
Greenpeace Austria from December 10, 2024, Greenpeace warns: Possibly large quantities of counterfeit honey on the Austrian market, link to the online article -> https://greenpeace.at/presse/greenpeace-warnt-moeglicherweise-grosse-mengen-gefaelschter-honig-auf-oesterreichischem-markt/