The European Commission published, on Thursday 23 March the results of the EU-wide coordinated action ‘From the Hives’on honey contaminated with sugars, which shows that 46% of samples of honey imported from outside the EU are suspected to contain added syrups.
To kick-off the exercise, sixteen Member States (plus Norway and Switzerland) participated in a first phase, during which honey samples were collected at borders between November 2021 and February 2022. In a second step, the participating countries and the Commission collected traceability data and information on suspected operators.
After this, investigations were carried out at places of import, processing, blending, and packing on suspicious imported consignments by participating countries, with the support of European Anti-Fraud Office (OLAF) investigators.
The aim of these investigations was to put a stop to operators voluntarily placing contaminated honey onto the EU market and sanction them accordingly.
Of the 320 samples taken at EU borders and analysed by the Joint Research Centre (JRC), 147 (46%) were suspected of being non-compliant (https://aeur.eu/f/5z9 ).
This rate of suspicion is considerably higher than in a previous EU-wide coordinated control plan conducted in 2015-2017, where 14% of the samples analysed did not comply with established benchmark criteria to assess honey authenticity.
However, the JRC applied a different set of methods, with improved detection capability, throughout the current exercise, which may explain this contrast (https://aeur.eu/f/5zb ).
A total of 123 exporters were subject to controls from which 70 (57%) were flagged as having exported honey consignments suspected of being adulterated with external sugars. On the other hand, 95 importers were affected. The exercise showed that two-thirds of them (63 importers) were implicated in the import of at least one suspicious consignment, going as high as 100% of non-compliance for a number of them. To date, 44 other operators have been investigated and 9 have been sanctioned.
The Commission has called on operators for an immediate action plan to remedy the situation that is detrimental to consumers’ interests and creates unfair competition for EU producers and operators. The EU Honey Directive, currently under revision (see EUROPE 13120/8), will include provisions to better protect the interests of consumers and honest producers by mandating detailed labelling of the geographical origin of honey.
The EU’s agricultural organisations and cooperatives (Copa-Cogeca) have been denouncing this dramatic situation for several years. “However, there are solutions supported by the whole sector. It is therefore high time for the EU to react! Almost 74% of Chinese honey samples, 93% of Turkish samples and 100% of UK samples were classified as suspects”, percentages they found alarming. (Original version in French by Lionel Changeur)