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Authenticity analysis of honey

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Comprehensive authenticity verification with the SOTA analysis bundle

The assessment of honey authenticity is a complex topic. According to the legal regulations and product identity guidelines honey is a mono-product to which ingredients or additives must not be added and from which natural constituents must not be removed. This means that by legal definition honey must consist of 100% honey, nothing else. Our Honey Competence Center offers you comprehensive authenticity control using a combination of analytical methods, the SOTA analysis package.

Overview of topics:

Honey quality and authenticity

Good beekeeping practices need to be applied to obtain quality honey, and care must be taken in the subsequent transportation, processing and packaging steps to maintain and preserve the natural composition and properties of honey as far as possible. Therefore, honey authenticity consists of two main aspects:

  • The genuineness and purity of the product
  • The correct labeling with regard to the botanical and geographical origin

The first point is of major interest since honey is one of the top ten food items prone to adulteration. The increasing demand by the consumers as a value-added natural product and by the food industry as a more valuable replacement for sugar as an ingredient in food products contrasts with the challenges in global honey production and supply due to environmental and climate changes, problems with bee health, difficulties in global trade and competitive pricing in the different market places.

Honey adulteration – what is food fraud?

In relation to economically motivated adulteration (EMA), commonly referred to as "food fraud", honey may be adulterated in the following ways by cheaper substitutes or fraudulent processing and labelling practices:

  • Deliberate dilution with cheaper sugar syrups
  • Deliberate sugar feeding of the bees in order to increase honey production volume per beehive
  • Deliberate cropping of immature or inferior honey and processing it in a way that it appears as being pure and mature honey while it is actually not compared to honey produced by good beekeeping practice
  • Mislabelling cheap and ordinary honey as high-quality honey from a rare source for the purpose of selling it at a higher price

The European Commission conducted a coordinated control plan for honey in 2015-17. 2237 honey samples were sampled in the EU Member States and tested for authenticity. According to the research report published by the EU Joint Research Center (JRC), more than 14% of the samples tested did not meet the purity criteria of honey.

In 2020, within operation OPSON X, Europol and Interpol conducted a coordinated action against adulterated honey. Out of 495 honeys checked by local authorities, 7% were non-compliant due to the presence of foreign sugars, and consequently, 51 tons of fake honey were seized.

The challenge of authenticity verification

Ensuring honey authenticity is a great analytical challenge. The composition and properties of honey can vary widely due to its numerous varieties and origins as well as to environmental conditions and beekeeping practices. Good expert knowledge and reference collections of authentic honeys from worldwide sources are required to provide reliable and effective authenticity methods for testing, as well as to assess properly the test results in relation to the legal and individual market requirements. There are only few official guidelines and no official methods so far which would allow a completely harmonised approach for producers, traders, retail and wholesale, as well as for food surveillance. The current authenticity assessment relies on a careful balance between the use of state-of-the-art analytical technologies, the current scientific state of play regarding honey authenticity and quality criteria, and the differentiation of deliberate adulteration from accidental or technical unavoidable impurities.

SOTA – the Eurofins solution

To date, there is no single and universal method available, which can cover all mentioned aspects of honey authenticity. Numerous analytical methods have been developed in the past to detect individual types of adulterations, making it difficult to decide for a non-expert what the best test strategy is. We have the right solution for this challenge. Our Honey Competence Center offers not only a comprehensive portfolio of tests for authenticity, quality and purity, but also a State-Of-The-Art (SOTA) test bundle of the most advanced authenticity and adulteration detection methods for a straight-forward and unified approach.

The SOTA bundle includes:

13C EA/LC-IRMS

The well-known and widely accepted 13C EA/LC-IRMS method uses carbon stable isotope ratios (13C/12C) of honey protein and individual sugar fractions to detect foreign sugars from C4 plant (e.g. sugar cane, corn) and C3 plant (e.g. rice, beet, wheat) origin. It has been in use for approx. 15 years for the routine control of honey samples.

1H NMR profiling

The 1H NMR profiling allows a fast screening for important quality parameters of honey (e.g. fructose, glucose, sucrose, HMF, proline), statistical verification models for the verification of a declared botanical and/or geographical origin, and the detection of foreign sugars. NMR cannot identify unknown origins and varieties or blends. The number of verification models is limited to the most frequent origins and varieties. NMR is less sensitive in the detection of C4 sugars compared to 13C EA/LC-IRMS, but improves C3 sugar detection capabilities where 13C EA/LC-IRMS has some limitations. NMR profiling relies on extensive databases of authentic honeys in order to assess authenticity by comparison of spectral profiles. The databases need regular updates and review of judgement criteria to reflect all honey sources and possible natural alterations in honey composition due to changes of environmental, climate or beekeeping conditions over time. Findings of adulterations should always be confirmed by complementary methods, e.g. LC-HRMS. NMR can also detect fraudulent processing applied to honey by untypical NMR profiles. For almost 10 years, 1H NMR profiling has been an important part of honey authenticity assessments complementing 13C EA/LC-IRMS analysis.

LC-HRMS

Liquid chromatography coupled to high-resolution mass spectrometry (LC-HRMS) is the newest authenticity method applicable to honey, first developed and introduced by Eurofins in 2018 as an ISO 17025 accredited method. It was particularly developed to detect those adulterations with foreign sugars, which remain undetected with 13C EA/LC-IRMS and 1H NMR (tailored syrups). LC-HRMS allows screening for multiple generic and syrup-specific marker molecules of sugar syrups used as adulterants. The method can be used both in a targeted and non-targeted mode, so that also yet unknown adulterants can be identified and characterised, and samples previously tested can be evaluated retrospectively for new adulterants. The particular power of the method is based on the use of typical multi-marker profiles for each syrup registered in our syrup database, instead of single marker molecules employed by conventional methods, allowing an unequivocal and sensitive detection of hard to detect adulterants.

Pollen analysis and sensory

Besides the SOTA bundle, pollen microscopy and sensory is important to identify the origin(s) and/or variety of monofloral honeys and honey blends. The honey sediment can give valuable information regarding authenticity (e.g. foreign particles typical for adulteration, or improper processing practices). The sensory evaluation is equally useful in terms of authenticity (e.g. by match or mismatch between the microscopic picture and sensory properties).

The following table highlights the individual capabilities of the presented complementary authenticity methods at one glance.

SOTA – method detection capabilities

Type of adulteration

13C EA/LC-IRMS

1H NMR-profiling

LC-HRMS

Pollen analysis/
sensory
C4 sugars ◉ ◉ ◉ ◉
C3 sugars ◉ ◉ ◉ ◉
Tailored syrups ◉ ◉ ◉ ◉
Fraudulent processing ◉ ◉ * ◉
Moisture reduction ◉ ◉ * ◉
Botanical/geographical origin ◉ ◉ / ◉ * ◉ / ◉
Quality parameters ◉ ◉ * ◉

* subject to current R&D activities
Capabilities: ◉ good / ◉ moderate / ◉ poor or unsuitable

Our analysis recommendation for honey authenticity

Using the above-mentioned methods in combination provides the highest available confidence level for honey authenticity assessment by analytical means, and therefore is the optimal solution to identify non-authentic honeys in order to ensure fair competition and market conditions, safe food and increase consumer confidence in honey as a wonderful, authentic and natural product.

We advise you individually on your personal needs. Please do not hesitate to get in contact with us for further information. We are looking forward to your enquiry.