75p vs £5.50: Is it worth splashing out for supermarket clear honey?
We’re a nation of Winnie the Poohs, the third biggest importers of honey, after the USA and Germany. But we don’t want to pay for it. More than half the honey we import comes from China, which produces the cheapest in the world. By contrast, British honey costs nearly three times as much on the European market.
But is it even honey? Along with milk powder and olive oil, honey is one of the three major targets for food fraud worldwide. Last November, the Honey Authentication Network UK, sent 25 samples of supermarket honey, most imported, for DNA testing. All but one came back flagged as “non-authentic – not typical of pure honey.” Meanwhile, the Food Standards Agency acknowledges that honey “has become a target for adulteration”. This is likely to be honey mixed with some sort of sugar syrup, very much cheaper than actual honey, which is how they can undercut British beekeepers’ prices.
Not only is it a swindle but these adulterated products boast none of the other benefits of honey – which is a natural antibacterial and contains tiny traces of other compounds, including propolis which may have anti-inflammatory benefits. What’s more, honey production encourages the protection of bee habitats, and with them other insects, vital not just for plant pollination but the eco-system as a whole.
Then there is the flavour. Those anonymous supermarket blends, often labelled “packed in the UK” (which generally means produced anywhere but the UK) and the equally vague “blend of honeys from more than one country” are designed to taste the same year in, year out – bland and sweet. A true honey, according to Helen Rogers of the Honey Guild who runs regular tasting workshops at Highgate Honey, is variable with the bees’ forage, complex flavoured and with bitter, salty and sour notes to balance the sweetness. Sniff it, taste it, savour it, “let your brain think about it.” And like Winnie the Pooh, enjoy it.
The taste test
How we tested
Helen Rogers from the Honey Guild advised that the first “sniff” to judge the fragrance of the honey should be done when the jar is initially opened – tricky in a blind tasting. My solution was to arrange for all the jars to be wrapped in newspaper and for the lids to be covered with masking tape to conceal any identifying marks. The honeys were assigned a letter from A to W to anonymise the samples and tasted “blind”.
