World Beekeeping Awards will not present award for best honey next year due to 'large scale fraud' in global supplies

The World Beekeeping Awards has revealed it will not award a prize for honey next year, following warnings that there has been fraud in the global supply chain, with some products bulked out with cheaper sugar syrup.

While Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations, will still hold its biannual congress in Denmark next year, where they will showcase global honey, it says it will not be giving out awards - for the first time.

A statement from Apimondia said: 'We will celebrate honey in many ways at the congress, but honey will no longer be a category, and thus no honey judging, in the World Beekeeping Awards. 

'This change to remove honey as a category was necessitated by the inability to have honey fully tested for adulteration.'

It comes after beekeepers have warned that the industry and food watchdogs have failed to tackle fraudulent products. 

However, many products have been rejection from entry into honey competitions in recent times over concerns of tampering, with the awards in Montreal in 2019 turning down some 45 per cent of entries due to suspected tampering.

That year marked the first that lab tests were introduced for the honey awards. Those products which did not pass the tests were taken out of competition and replaced with a card which said: 'This exhibit has failed laboratory analysis and cannot be judged further.

According to the federation’s president Jeff Pettis, next year's conference will shine a spotlight on how fraud is damaging beekeepers globally. 

A statement by Enid Brown, director of the World Beekeeping Awards, said: 'The UK government needs to wake up to this problem of adulteration of imported honey. 

'Until the government starts official tests on honey and publishing the results, we are never going to win.'

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: 'We take any type of food fraud very seriously. 

'There is no place for adulterated honey which undermines consumer confidence and disadvantages responsible businesses acting within the law.

'We work closely with enforcement authorities to ensure that honey sold in the UK is not subject to adulteration, meets our high standards, and maintains a level playing field between honey producers.'

When it comes to buying honey, there are several internet hacks on how to ensure the product has not been tampered with.

However, Dr Shona Blair, an expert in honey's medicinal properties from Imperial College London, previously told MailOnline: 'There is no truth or scientific basis for the "internet solutions".

She said that your best bet for buying good quality, authentic honey is looking at the brand and where it is produced.

Lynn Ingram, master beekeeper BBKA honey ambassador and member of the UK Honey Authenticity Network, agreed that looking at the label can be a helpful indicator as to whether the product you are looking at is genuine. 

The only surefire way to ensure your honey is real is to buy it directly from a local beekeeper or beekeeping organisation.

However, since this won't be an option for most people there are a few ways to increase your chances of finding legitimate honey at the supermarket.



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According to experts, the best way to ensure your honey is unadulterated is to buy directly from local beekeepers. As this will be impossible for many, one expert said it's worth being aware that if the label says 'a blend of non-EU countries', that could be an indication that the product has been adulterated

The EU's testing found that 74 per cent of fake honey entering the EU market comes from China where there is less legislation governing the production of honey.

The samples of UK honey which turned out to be fake were, upon closer analysis, imported from China before being mixed and relabelled in the UK.

Likewise, Turkey is also a hotbed for honey fraud as 93 per cent of all Turkish samples tested had been adulterated with other sugars.

Ms Ingram said: 'If the label says "a blend of non-EU countries" then that will be a bit of an indication.

'We don't know exactly what's in there but a lot of that will probably come from China.'