Fake honey in Serbia: Markets knowingly sell it and nothing to anyone

After a major combat action was announced in Serbia against corruption, numerous arrests followed - be it party functionaries, entrepreneurs or other prominent figures. However, the conclusion passed by the Government on February 20, which ordered immediate measures to be taken to strengthen market control of various food products, went under the radar.

Among them is honey - a food that is ready every household there is in the house. Or at least he thinks he does, because it's very possible that the shelves in your pantry or fridge right now don't have honey, but something that resembles it.

"Professional forgers and chemists made honey that often did not even pass through the hive, and which, unfortunately, passes many of today's analyses. There is no way for the buyer to differentiate fake honey from the real one on his own," Rodoljub Živadinović, president of the Association of Beekeeping Organizations of Serbia (SPOS), told Vreme.

Fake honey flooded the market

According to the research conducted by the "United for Quality" cluster in cooperation with the "Consumer Movement for Food Quality" association and the "Ana Lab" laboratory from Pancevo in September 2023, as many as 22 out of 25 samples of honey sold in supermarkets failed the authenticity test - that is, 88 percent of the tested honey was not correct.

As the interlocutor of "Vremena" explains, the situation is not much better to date. The latest survey of the consumer movement at the end of 2024, conducted on a similar sample, showed that almost 80 percent of the honey on the market is fake.

"We were very disappointed that some markets where none of the honey was good, until today, did not express their desire to release real honey into their markets." "They continue to keep fakes on their shelves without pardon," says Živadinović.

We visited some larger retail chains, such as "Maxi", "Idea" and "Dis" and found that honey that once did not pass the test of correctness can still be bought in them. Among these products are flower, acacia and linden honey from the brand "Krnjevac", several products from the brand "Maxi"... See the entire list of products marked as counterfeit here.

Although these products did not pass the authenticity test, the state did not react at the time. Officially, there is no state data on what percentage of honey on shelves is defective.

SPOS, in response to the pressure of counterfeiting, with state support, built a plant for the sale of its members' honey, without intermediaries. Honey is marketed under the brand name "Naš med", and the president of the Association points out that the analyzes of honey in all controls were excellent, because the facility checks every sample before purchase. They introduced modern analysis back in November 2023 - more than a year before the state - in order to ensure the quality of honey.

What is counterfeit honey?

However, what exactly is fake honey and how does it differ from real honey? Dušanka Milojković-Opsenica, a professor at the Faculty of Chemistry at the University of Belgrade, talks about this for "Vreme".

As he explains, "honey is a unique foodstuff, both of plant and animal origin, with a very complex composition that depends on the type of honey plants from which it comes, the place and season of collection, the type of bees, climatic conditions and beekeeping practices."

Chemically, honey is a very complex substance.

"It is believed that honey contains hundreds of different substances, some of which come from nectar, some are added to honey by bees, and some are created during the maturation of honey in the honeycomb." Bearing this in mind, it is clear that real and fake honey differ in chemical composition, which determines the sensory properties of honey (appearance, color, smell, taste), nutritional value, but also its biological value, i.e. positive effects on health," says our interlocutor and adds that honey can be counterfeited in different ways.

"Direct adulteration of honey usually involves the addition of some sugar syrup - corn, glucose, fructose, rice and others - in a larger or smaller quantity to the honey," she states.

On the other hand, indirect counterfeiting implies illegal feeding of bees with sugar syrups, explains the professor.

Neither is allowed.

According to current regulations, "when it is placed on the market as honey or used in any product intended for human consumption, no ingredients, including food additives, or any other additives may be added to honey," adds our interlocutor.

The problem also arises because honey that is not authentic loses its healing properties.

"Any addition of any foreign ingredient changes the composition of honey and its characteristics, including its beneficial effects on health." Considering that counterfeiters counterfeit honey in a variety of ways for the sake of material gain, it is certain that there is fake honey that can endanger the health of the person who consumes it," explains the professor.

Why is honey adulterated?

The problem of fake honey is not present only in Serbia. Honey is one of the most falsified foods in the world, and analyzes conducted by the European Union in 2022 showed that almost half of the honey (46 percent) imported into its territory is not correct.

The reason for counterfeiting is simple - profit.

"Profits on fakes are higher because the entry price is lower." Today you have a huge import of honey that is imported at a price of 1,3 euros with delivery, which means that its production price is far below one euro per kilogram. A serious business has been built around this throughout Europe and the world," says the president of SPOS.

"If you take honey whose import price is 1,3 euros and sell it in the store for 1.200 to 1.500 dinars, that's huge earnings and interest." And that's not only on honey, but also on many other products," adds Živadinović.

Data from SPOS show that there are about 1,6 million beehives in Serbia, about 20.000 registered beekeepers, and that more than 50 companies buy, pack and resell honey.

However, due to the huge number of counterfeits, the market situation of this product is alarming.

"If this is not resolved quickly, there is no way out for us." Beekeepers can no longer withstand the purchase prices of honey, which are below the level of the production price. "No one is crazy to put their hand in their pocket and pay someone extra to sell their honey," adds Živadinović.

Control of imported honey

If there is a large amount of fake honey on the market that can deceive even the most sophisticated analyses, how can we fight against it? Although Europe is facing a serious problem of identifying fakes, Serbia has an innovative method for detecting fake honey, accredited according to international standards in April 2023.

"We fought for 18 months for the state to include this method in the list of official methods for inspection controls. "We finally agreed in January that it will be applied at border crossings and in markets," says Živadinović.

The first controls at the borders began as part of a major campaign against corruption, and so far around 160 tons of honey have been sampled. Although the results have not been officially published, Živadinović claims that the unofficial information is alarming – most of the samples are incorrect.

"Unofficially, we heard at the meetings with the competent state authorities that part of the analysis was completed and that the results were negative." Which is expected for honey at a price of 1,3 euros per kilogram," says the president of SPOS.

Officially, information on the quality of imported honey is still not available. We received a response from the Ministry of Agriculture that they do not have data on the results of the analyzed sample until the tests are completed, but that they do not know when that could be.

The interlocutor of "Vremen" explains that the reason for this is the "superanalyses" insisted on by the importers. They imply that the tested honey samples are subsequently sent to laboratories in other countries, where more detailed laboratory tests would be carried out.

In this way, as our interlocutor explains, bad honey can be declared good "if it is sent to the wrong place".

"We insist that the samples be sent to India, where the laboratories have the highest percentage of matching results with the Serbian method. "We consider any other solution unacceptable, because European methods let through counterfeits," Živadinović warns.

The long-term solution, explains the interlocutor of "Vremena", would be to declare the Serbian method, which proved to be the most reliable, to be the reference method.

"Then there are no more superanalyses, there are no more falsifications in Serbia, and that's where the whole story ends."

Advice for buyers

In addition to the import problem, an additional challenge is the lack of control in the sales chains. Although the state promised stricter inspections to the Association of Beekeeping Organizations of Serbia, that promise has not yet been fulfilled.

"We have sent a list of markets that need to be checked. A very small number of them were checked and only 11 honey samples were taken, while we expected 150 to 200 samples. The results have not arrived yet. It is true that they said that it will be done continuously, but we have not seen any plan for that," our interlocutor points out.

Until the market situation changes, consumers remain in an unenviable position because they have no reliable way to recognize real honey. As a positive step, the president of SPOS explains that the application of consumers and their market controls, which will consolidate the results of sampling of various products susceptible to counterfeiting, such as honey, milk, wine and brandy, will start working soon. The aim of the application is to put public pressure on counterfeiters on the one hand, and on the other hand to inform consumers which product is good.

In the meantime, Živadinović advises honey lovers to pay attention to crystallization when buying.

"Although natural honey does not always have to crystallize, 95 percent of products do. Counterfeit honey, on the other hand, remains liquid because consumers in Serbia prefer such honey out of habit. If you have a jar of honey that is crystallized from the bottom to the top, most likely everything is fine," concludes Živadinović.