One in five samples of Australian-sourced honey has been discovered to be fake. Of 38 samples tested from Australian brands, 18 percent detected adulteration. Victoria, Queensland, NSW and Tasmania were among the states implicated in the finding. This news comes as part of a growing global scandal of impure honey.
Nine samples of honey from Tasmania were tested, with 23 percent found to be adulterated, one out of two from NSW. Of six samples from Queensland, a third were determined to be impure and 29 percent of seven tested samples of honey in Victoria were also found to be fake. South and Western Australian honey samples were pure.
Led by Professor Mark Taylor, Macquaire University, the scientific team comprised of PhD student Xiaotend Zhou and Helen Salouros and Shiva Prasad also noted many samples were mis-labelled.
These findings were made following the honey industry being put under the spotlight in investigations around imported honey. The ABC’s 7.30 and Fairfax Media warned manufacturers in the industry that mis-labelling of product raises health and safety concerns and can compromise customer confidence in the brands.
“We know that the issue of adulteration is a prevalent problem but we didn’t think it would be that persistent in Australia for Australian-produced products. The only way to guarantee that you are getting real bona fide honey is to buy it from a local producer where you can see it coming out of the hive or your produce your own honey yourself. That’s really the only deadest guarantee at this moment in time,” said Professor Taylor.
