Honey and sugar syrup: what the EU found

In 2023 the European Commission reported that 46% of the honey consignments it sampled at EU borders were suspected of being stretched with sugar syrup. There is no kitchen test that reliably catches this. This note explains what the investigation found, why the popular home tests fail, and what a buyer can check instead.

What the EU found

The coordinated action was called From the Hives. Between November 2021 and February 2022, national authorities in 16 EU Member States, plus Switzerland and Norway, sampled 320 consignments of imported honey from 20 countries of origin. The European Commission’s Joint Research Centre analysed them and published the results on 23 March 2023.

• 147 of 320 samples, 46%, were suspicious of not complying with the EU Honey Directive, which forbids adding any food ingredient to honey.
• By country of dispatch, the suspicion rate was highest for honey from Turkey (93%) and China (74%). All samples from the United Kingdom were suspicious, and the Commission noted that this honey was probably produced elsewhere and blended in the UK before re-export.
• An earlier EU control action, carried out in 2015, had found 14% non-compliant. Methods had improved in the meantime, so the two figures are not a clean trend, but the direction is not reassuring.
• The syrups have changed. Syrups made from maize, which older isotope tests detect well, are now rarely used. They have been replaced by syrups made mostly from rice, wheat or sugar beet, which are harder to find.

The economics explain the incentive. The Commission gave the average price of imported honey in 2021 as EUR 2.32 per kilogram, against roughly EUR 0.40 to 0.60 per kilogram for rice syrup.

Two cautions keep this honest. The results are about imports sampled at the border, not about honey produced inside the EU. And suspicious means that a sample failed one or more analytical checks, not that a court found fraud. Beekeeping and trade bodies have criticised some of the methods, and the UK government later published a methodological review of the survey. We link to both sides below.

Why home tests do not work

Online guides recommend dropping honey in water, onto a thumb, onto blotting paper, or lighting it with a match. The Joint Research Centre put it plainly: a simple test is not sufficient to detect adulteration. Laboratories combine isotope ratio analysis, liquid chromatography, marker compounds for specific syrups and, increasingly, full traceability checks on the supplier’s paperwork. None of that can be done in a kitchen.

Two popular beliefs are especially misleading:

• Crystallisation is not a sign of fake honey. Most real honey crystallises in time. How fast depends on its sugars. Menalon fir honey, for example, is known for being slow to crystallise, and a thyme blend will set sooner.
• Thick does not mean pure. Syrups can be made to any viscosity.

What you can check

1. A protected name. A PDO fixes where the honey comes from and how it is produced, under inspection. The two Greek PDO honeys we list are Meli Elatis Menalou Vanilia (Menalon fir honey, the first Greek honey protected by the EU, registered in 1996) and Pefkothymaromelo Kritis (Cretan pine and thyme honey, registered by Commission Implementing Regulation (EU) 2017/1555).
2. A named producer. A beekeeper or cooperative, not only a brand or an importer. Plain Greek thyme honey or Cretan thyme honey has no geographical indication of its own, so its origin rests entirely on who sold it.
3. Lab reports. Ask for a recent analysis of the batch. Serious producers commission them, and a seller who cannot supply one is telling you something.
4. A price that makes sense. A 450 g jar of single-origin mountain honey sold for the price of supermarket blend cannot be both.

What PINAX sells

We list the two Greek PDO honeys only: Menalon fir honey Vanilia from Mount Mainalo in Arcadia, and Pefkothymaromelo Kritis from Crete. Both are marked Being verified and the maker field reads [partner to be sourced]. Neither goes on sale until the producer supplies a batch lab report, which we will link from the record. We do not sell unprotected thyme honey, because we would have no way to show you its origin.

Honey is not suitable for babies under 12 months. We do not ship honey to Australia, where honey imports are inspected and restricted, until each product has been checked against the Australian import conditions database (BICON).