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Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

theguardian.com

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Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#51

Post by mft_ »

Etheryte wrote: post #37
School-Cotton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know this? Is there actual reporting on what percentage of honey in supermarkets is adulterated, rather than just anecdotal reports that at least some is?

There are many studies into this, but this Forbes article [0] is a good example: > Of 123 honey exporters to Europe, 70 are suspected of having adulterated their products, and out of 95 European importers checked, two-thirds are affected by at least one suspect batch. This is only one example, similar stings elsewhere have likewise found bleak results. As the son of a beekeeper I can attest to this, the honey you fin…

> similar stings

:)

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#52

Post by JumpCrisscross »

russdill wrote: post #30
CamperBob2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to put your local beekeeper out of the business of selling honey, then by all means, complain about an inadequate regulatory state. Because that's who the bureaucrats will go after.

Regulation can ensure that businesses doing things right can actually complete. How the hell is my local beekeeper supposed to compete against people selling jars of corn syrup?

> Regulation can ensure that businesses doing things right can actually complete

Regulation adds fixed costs. That always increases barriers to entry.

The aim is to make that barrier worth it. (You can also directly mitigate it, but this is less common.) But in the cases of food and medicine, regulation has absolutely forced consolidation. The pitch from Big Pharma and Big Ag when buying out biotech and food start-ups (or small producers) is they've mastered the global compliance network, and can thus scale and thus outcompete small producers.

What it does seem we need is liability by large distributors around selling fraudulent products. That still adds a barrier to entry, since those distributors will have a testing programme. But at least you get multiple programs that have an incentive to reduce costs.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#53

Post by RHSeeger »

russdill wrote: post #30
CamperBob2 wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you want to put your local beekeeper out of the business of selling honey, then by all means, complain about an inadequate regulatory state. Because that's who the bureaucrats will go after.

Regulation can ensure that businesses doing things right can actually complete. How the hell is my local beekeeper supposed to compete against people selling jars of corn syrup?

Word of mouth. Not the best option, but it's balanced against the cost of regulation. The cost of complying with regulation (not changes in the product, but proving you comply) can destroy any hope of profit from a smaller business; but the cost doesn't increase at the same rate as business size, so the big businesses have no issue.

Regulations are important, but they have a distinct cost.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#54

Post by JumpCrisscross »

zug_zug wrote: post #38

I think the FDA should build towards mass food analysis. To sell something en masse you should have to put down a deposit, and the FDA should do an annual analysis of your food (via mass spectometry) from samples from the food store. They should mix dozens of samples from different states to get good coverage. Should you fail (illegal pesticides, ingredients differ than label, too much lead, whatever) then you lose y…

> To sell something en masse you should have to put down a deposit, and the FDA should do an annual analysis of your food (via mass spectometry) from samples from the food store

Why don't we see more private enforcement? Class action lawsuits against fraudulent producers and distributors?

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#55

Post by yumraj »

Etheryte wrote: post #10

Here's a very straightforward guide to buying honey. If you see honey at a supermarket, no you don't, that's sugar syrup. If you see honey online, no you don't, that's sugar syrup. If you find an old dude with a small stand and a bunch of (most likely unlabelled) jars who only accepts cash, that's where you get real honey.

Now old dudes will buy supermarket honey and unlabeled jars.

Unverifiable provenance in both cases..

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#56

Post by move-on-by »

zug_zug wrote: post #38

I think the FDA should build towards mass food analysis. To sell something en masse you should have to put down a deposit, and the FDA should do an annual analysis of your food (via mass spectometry) from samples from the food store. They should mix dozens of samples from different states to get good coverage. Should you fail (illegal pesticides, ingredients differ than label, too much lead, whatever) then you lose y…

According to the article, the switch is occurring somewhere in the supply chain. So in your proposal, what part of the supply chain would bee on the hook for this deposit and profit reaping?

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#57

Post by foolfoolz »

SoftTalker wrote: post #29
thwarted wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Rose colored glasses looking at the past. Nostalgia for something that never was.

Exactly. Food purity and safety has probably never been higher. 100 years ago there was widespread adulteration and contamination of food, in addition to pure snake oil sold as beneficial medication.

i don’t buy the low trust society model. i see improved awareness

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#58

Post by throwup238 »

highcountess wrote: post #48
throwup238 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> "Consumers don't tend to like crystallized honey," says Jill Clark, vice president for sales and marketing at Dutch Gold. "It's very funny. In Canada, there's a lot of creamed honey sold, and people are very accustomed to honey crystallizing. Same in Europe. But the U.S. consumer is very used to a liquid product, and as soon as they see those first granules of crystallization, we get the phone calls: 'Something's w…

Are you sure what you believe is unadulterated honey because you are familiar with the taste, is not just adulterated and you are just so accustomed to fake honey that you confuse the two? I say that because basically all the honey I’ve ever bought in a store has always tasted flat and lacked flavor depth that has long made me wonder about its authority compared to known hive honey.

I’ve had raw honey straight from both domesticated and wild hives as it was collected so unless the bees themselves are adulterating it, I think I’ve got an accurate baseline for how honey is supposed to taste.

Go out and buy a good manuka or wild Himalayan honey and you’ll quickly learn how to spot the real stuff. The honey I buy isn’t meant to look like filtered golden sugar syrup so adulterating it is practically impossible. That said I buy it from ethnic grocery stores so unless you’re getting the good stuff at Trader Joes YMMV (I like their manuka)

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#59

Post by yumraj »

skylurk wrote: post #28
School-Cotton wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How do you know this? Is there actual reporting on what percentage of honey in supermarkets is adulterated, rather than just anecdotal reports that at least some is?

Honey supply chains are opaque and global, plus the incentives to cheat are clearly there and it's hard to definitively prove a batch was not adulterated. I'd say it's fair to be suspicious. That said, this old article seems to think its not as common a problem as you would expect: https://www.npr.org/sections/thesalt/2011/11/25/142659547/re...

We buy from Costco and most/all of it crystallizes after some time.

Not sure if that makes it good honey, but there’s that.

Re: Beekeepers halt honey awards over fraud in global supply chain

#60

Post by ponector »

codetrotter wrote: post #36
c2h5oh wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Better yet befriend a beekeeper. You gain a friend and honey.

Cut out the middleman. Become friend with the bees. You gain a hive mind as friend, and honey! :D

Bit to get honey would mean to rob your hive friend.
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