Bitter Taste - Fake Honey

Capilano, Australia's biggest honey producer, and supermarkets accused of selling 'fake' honey

Capilano, Australia's biggest honey producer, and supermarkets accused of selling 'fake' honey

Australia's biggest listed honey company and some of the country's largest supermarket chains face accusations of unwittingly selling "fake" honey.

Read More

https://www.theage.com.au/business/consumer-affairs/capilano-supermarkets-accused-of-selling-fake-honey-20180827-p5000u.html?crpt=homepage

ABC 730

http://www.abc.net.au/7.30/capilano-and-supermarkets-accused-of-selling-fake/10197192

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-09-03/capilano-and-supermarkets-accused-of-selling-fake-honey/10187628

Fake honey is everywhere. Honey is the world’s third most adulterated food product. An investigation by The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and ABC 7.30 revealed Australia's biggest listed honey company, Capilano, and some of the country's largest supermarket chains faced accusations of selling adulterated honey. Tests were done inside a state-of-the-art German lab that specializes in testing honey for fraud. They found almost half the samples selected from Australian supermarket shelves were adulterated, meaning it had been mixed with other substances. The adulterated samples were all products that blend local and imported honey. Adulterated honey is typically bulked up with sweet substances such as rice or corn syrup and is produced mostly in China. Food fraud is big business internationally, estimated to be a $57 billion-dollar market. We found blatant ads on Alibaba offering drums of fake home guaranteed to pass Australia’s C4 honey test. We exposed how Australia’s official honey test, C4, is decades old and can only test for sugar syrup, which means criminal gangs largely from China, have found ways to cheat the test. The exclusive report exposed serious flaws in Australia’s regulation and monitoring of honey - only 5 per cent of imported honey is tested. The country’s second biggest honey producer, Beechworth Honey, spoke out for the first time saying fake honey was threatening the viability of the entire industry. Cheap fake honey imports have crushed local Australian producers, with 25% going out of business in the last 10 years. This jeopardises Australia’s food security by reducing the number of honey bees available to pollinate crops, a linchpin of our agricultural sector. IMPACT • After the story was published in print, online and TV it lead to an immediate investigation by the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission. • Aldi supermarket chain pulled all Capilano’s Allowrie honey brand off its shelves. • Capilano also announced it would help fund a new and improved honey test to give Australian consumers more confidence in trusting what they were purchasing was indeed a pure product. • The peak lobby group for honey also Australian Honey Bee Industry Council said it would lobby the department of agriculture to introduce a new test for honey in Australia. • Supermarkets caught selling adulterated honey said they would introduce random testing.