It’s revered as the ultimate natural food, but the business of selling honey has become ever more complicated – and a scandal is happening on shop shelves. Phoebe Stone explores the difference between a squeezy supermarket bottle and a jar from your local beekeeper, while Emily Gussin shares three recipes showcasing honey’s glorious versatility
RECIPES AND FOOD STYLING EMILY GUSSIN PHOTOGRAPHS INDIA WHILEY-MORTON
If honey is a staple of your supermarket shop, you might be surprised by the lack of information about it on the jars or bottles on the shelves. Your packets of asparagus have the name of the farmer on it but a basic bottle of ‘runny honey’ might have: ‘A blend of non-EU honeys, packed in the UK’. The shopper is none the wiser. Retailers want reliably runny, low-priced and standardised products. This is achieved by blending honey sourced from around the globe.
“Wine is blended – it’s not something to be snobby about as a concept,” says micro-beekeeper Amy Newsome, author of cookbook Honey, “but you lose the specificity of flavour – and finding out where that honey came from is difficult.” Only around 14 per cent of the honey consumed in the UK is British. We import most from China and there’s no requirement to declare countries of origin for blends from more than one. The EU plans to reform this, and pressure from some beekeepers is urging the UK to follow suit.
IS WHAT YOU’RE BUYING EVEN HONEY?
The ugly consequence? Honey is one of the most common targets of food fraud. In 2023 the European Commission reported that nearly half the samples tested from 20 countries were suspected of being adulterated with sugar syrup, including all 10 UK-packed samples. That’s why it’s worth spending a little more for the real deal. “We have to rethink how we use honey and see it as a treat ingredient, like extra-virgin olive oil,” says Amy. “The more you push people to drop prices, the more they’re going to compromise the health of their stock,” says Sarah Wyndham Lewis, honey sommelier and co-founder of sustainable beekeeping practice Bermondsey Street Bees. She has a smart suggestion: for verified honey to be sold alongside an affordable honey-flavoured alternative, which is the norm for maple syrup. “We’re being denied the opportunity to make a fair choice.”
WHY IS HONEY REMARKABLE?
Honeybee colonies are one of nature’s few superorganisms, working as one to create a miraculous substance. Forager bees collect nectar and begin converting it into fructose
