Danger of Adulterated Honey Lurks for Uninformed Consumers

SARAJEVO, (Patria) - With the summer tourist season, domestic and foreign tourists have the opportunity to buy various honey products from local vendors on roads and markets across Bosnia and Herzegovina.

In 2017, the Food Safety Agency conducted a quality check of Bosnian and imported honey. The analysis results warn that there is a huge danger that, if you decide to buy honey from unverified producers and sellers, which is most often sold by the roadside, you will get sugar mixtures and adulterated honey.

- Given the conducted research where we had a high percentage of irregularities in 100 samples, it is clear that we have a situation where beekeepers as producers of quality honey are endangered, and thus consumers are also endangered. In order to prevent the placement of adulterated honey, we also had actions with two entities, where we destroyed large quantities of adulterated honey - explains Nijaz Bajramović from the Food Safety Agency.

In cooperation with the USAID/Sweden FARMA II project, the Food Safety Agency, in order to inform competent authorities and inspectorates, as well as honey producers, distributors, and importers themselves about the problem of poor quality and adulterated honey, has launched a technical assistance program to strengthen the capacity of domestic laboratories for honey analysis and quality monitoring systems. Thus, in the past period, a series of trainings were held in Banja Luka, Mostar, and Sarajevo with representatives of the agency, competent institutions and laboratories, inspection bodies, and representatives of beekeeping associations and beekeepers.

- Honey in Bosnia and Herzegovina is of above-average quality. The problem is in sales, where, as we discussed today, you have roadside sales, but also broader and quality control. This is an ongoing process, and education starts with beekeepers, then through the public and raising awareness that buying quality honey is worthwhile for both the beekeeper and the consumer - said Dario Lasić, an expert in honey quality control and one of the lecturers in the beekeeper education program.

Although, without laboratory analysis and adequate inspection, it is difficult for the average consumer to detect adulterated honey, some indicators exist. If the honey is too clear, without turbidity or crystallization, and without adequate labeling, you have most likely bought filtered sugar syrup, not honey. Beekeepers are also concerned about the market situation, says Nusret Sirćo.

- As a beekeeper and veterinarian, I find this type of education useful, where beekeepers can further inform their customers and consumers. Our mountain honey, medikovac, is closest in content and quality to highly valued types of honey in the world. We can increase control together, ensure consumer trust – from passers-by to those who buy it from us every day. From that process, we can then move towards increasing the price of our honey on the market in the long term - said Sirćo.

Citizens do not only encounter adulterated honey on the roadsides. Imported products are significantly cheaper than domestic quality honey because they have most often undergone various technological processes of mixing and 'spoiling'.

Beekeepers, institutions, and consumers face a difficult task of building trust in domestic honey. The first step on that path is changing consumer habits.