You may have seen the recent alarming headlines that a type of honey from Tesco was found to contain syrup made from cheap sugar. The honey in question, Tesco Set Honey (454g for £1.35), is now under investigation by the National Food Crime Unit after tests suggested it had been adulterated.
Whilst these cheap syrups are not dangerous per say, as we know from the horse meat scandal of 2014, consumers have the right to know that the information on a food label fully describes what’s inside. It’s thought that Tesco isn’t alone, and that the adulteration of honey using cheap sweetening ingredients could be widespread.
The Food Standards Agency, which oversees the National Food Crime Unit (which was set up in response to the horse meat scandal) have called on Tesco to “act fast and take the honey off the shelves”.
We should point out that Tesco have asked for further tests and say that they go to great lengths to provide trustworthy honey. But cheap, supermarket honey has been under the spotlight for a while.
90% of the honey we eat in the UK is imported, mostly from China. By the time it reaches our stores, it’s generally been passed through many different companies’ hands. This complicated trail makes it hard to trace the true provenance, and leaves it wide open for adulteration – all to increase profits. Batches of honey can be mixed with cheap sugar syrups, with colourings and flavourings added to make it look and taste like honey.
New high tech analyses that can detect adulterated honey during routine testing now signals bad news for unscrupulous ‘honey’ producers, but good news for consumers.
Natural and Pure Necta & Hive Honey
All Necta & Hive honey is 100% genuine. We simply wouldn’t entertain the idea of supplying our customers anything less. Our honey is produced by bees free to forage on the Jarrah and Marri trees in their natural homelands of Western Australia. This produces a completely natural product. We don’t use pasteurisation or any other heat treatment on our honey, we just minimally filter it to remove any bee parts.
Just as nature intended, Necta & Hive honey is more expensive than supermarket honey, but it’s a truly premium product. Those Western Australian honey bees have worked hard to produce a product that’s as delicious as it is healthy.
Our luxury honeys are powerfully healing, and consuming them has many health benefits, including immune support, a healthier gut microbiome, wound healing and soothing sore throats and coughs.
Active, healing honeys are given a TA, or total activity rating. This is a measure of the antimicrobial power of the honey. Necta & Hive honeys all have high TA ratings – in fact, Necta & Hive Marri Wild Honeycomb 15+ TA Honey has one of the highest TA ratings on the market. It is an important part of our ethos that all our honey is independently tested and we take great pride in the results it achieves. What’s more, we publish our independent test results that demonstrate the TA of all our honey.
Our luxury healing honeys taste slightly less sweet than the regular supermarket honey often found in squeezy bottles. 100% pure, it’s no surprise they’re loved by both those with a sweet tooth and those without!
