A television station in Grand Rapids, Mich., says its
investigations indicate that up to 90 per cent of the honey retailers sell is
not what’s claimed on labels.
That included samples it picked up from supermarkets
indicating some of the honey was from Canada.
It contained pollen that indicated at least some of the
honey came instead from a tropical climate.
China is speculated to be the
source of much of the honey involved in cheating.
One Michigan company, Groeb Farms now operating as Natural
American Honey, was fined $2 million after federal investigators found it was
honey from China, not from U.S. beekeepers as claimed on the label.
The company says the executives who were responsible for the
fraud are gone.
But Dr. Vaughn Bryant who grew up in Holland, Mich., and is
now a researcher known as the “honey detective” at Texas A&M university,
said about 75 per cent of honey labels are misleading.
A federal government investigator told the television
station that he thinks 90 per cent of the labels are wrong.
The issue for beekeepers is that their markets and prices
are being undermined by imported honey that is promoted with labels such as “pure
clover honey”.
Rod Scarlett of the Honey Council of Canada said there is no
similar issue for Canadians because virtually no honey is imported. Canada is a
net exporter of honey.
