by The World Beekeeping Awards will not award honey next year after warnings of widespread fraud in the global supply chain.
Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations, says it will showcase honey from around the world at its conference in Denmark, but for the first time will not award any prizes for the product.
The decision came as beekeepers and importers face a growing crisis over the scale of the fraud, with warnings that genuine products are being supplemented with cheaper sugar syrup. Some common tests to detect fraud can be easily circumvented, and beekeepers say food watchdogs and the industry have failed to combat the fraudsters.
Apimondia said in a statement: “We will celebrate honey in many ways at the Congress, but honey will no longer be a category, and therefore no honey jury, in the World Beekeeping Awards. This change to remove honey as a category was necessary because it was not possible to fully test honey for adulteration.”
The awards are typically held every two years at the conference and are attended by thousands of beekeepers, scientists and industry representatives. Dozens of entries in recent honey competitions have been rejected due to suspicions of adulteration.
About 45% of the honey was rejected at the 2019 Montreal awards for various reasons, including suspected adulteration. At the 2022 Istanbul Congress, 39 of the 145 honey varieties were withdrawn from the market due to suspected adulteration. The awards also have other categories, which will continue to be judged at next year’s competition, including beeswax, mead, innovation and publications.
Jeff Pettis, president of the federation, says the first laboratory testing for honey was introduced for the 2019 awards. Honey that was excluded was replaced with a card that read: “This piece of evidence has failed laboratory analysis and cannot proceed further are assessed.”
There were logistical challenges for the competition in authenticating entries and border controls, he said. The Copenhagen Congress in September 2025 would highlight the damage done to beekeepers around the world by fraud.
He said: “We continue to fight for improvements in testing. We want the public to know that local honey is much less likely to be adulterated. The beekeepers get their name on it and can stand behind it.”
He said there is widespread adulteration of cheaper commercial honey. The fraud can occur at any point in the supply chain, with many importers and retailers unwittingly trading in counterfeit honey.
An EU study published last year found that 46% of imported products sampled were suspected of being fraudulent, including all ten from the UK. Samples used in October by the UK branch of the Honey Authenticity Network for a new form of DNA testing found that 24 out of 25 jars from major UK retailers were suspect.
China is the world’s largest producer of honey, but experts say it can be fraudulently mixed with cheaper sugar syrup. Britain is the world’s biggest importer of Chinese honey, with more than 39,000 tonnes imported last year.
Bernhard Heuvel, president of the European Professional Beekeepers Association, said there is overwhelming evidence of fraud in the supply chain. “It is simply unbelievable if the World Organization cannot guarantee the authenticity of honey for all beekeepers. The scale of this fraud is enormous.”
Dale Gibson, co-founder of Bermondsey Street Bees, which has beehives in and around London, said Britain should require importers to declare the country of origin on all honey, including blends. He said: “We need to give consumers information at the point of sale that they can take action on.”
Importers in Britain have dismissed as unreliable hundreds of tests of honey sold in Britain that indicated adulteration, ordered by campaigners and researchers. Regulators in Britain have not published detailed results of official tests but have rejected claims of significant fraud.
A food crime assessment published by the Food Standards Agency (FSA) in September said adulterated honey was “unlikely to be prevalent in the UK market” but acknowledged the “complexity” in making the judgement.
Enid Brown, director of the World Beekeeping Awards, said: “The UK government needs to wake up to this problem of adulteration of imported honey. Until the government starts official testing on honey and publishes the results, we will never win.”
A spokesperson for the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) said: “We take any form of food fraud very seriously. There is no place for adulterated honey, which undermines consumer confidence and penalizes responsible, law-abiding companies.
“We work closely with enforcement authorities to ensure that honey sold in Britain is not subject to adulteration, meets our high standards and maintains a level playing field between honey producers.”
Andrew Quinn, head of the FSA’s National Food Crime Unit, said: “We are working closely with Defra and other government colleagues to develop compelling tests that can determine the authenticity of honey for sale.”
