Is your honey really made by bees? Meet The Food Detectives fighting fake honey

euronews (in English)

Is your honey really made by bees? Meet The Food Detectives fighting fake honey  Europe’s top food safety experts are joining forces to crack down on fraud. Euronews follows them in this special series, The Food Detectives. In Episode 4, we meet the team fighting fake honey in Spain.  In partnership with the European Union & the Watson Project  READ MORE : http://www.euronews.com/2025/10/20/is-your-honey-really-made-by-bees-meet-the-food-detectives-fighting-fake-honey  Euronews Next is a future-focused news section covering global innovation, science and technology with a European perspective. Our dedicated team of journalists aims to educate and inspire today’s leaders by providing them with analysis and insights into the people and organisations shaping our future

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00:00Europe's best food safety experts are joining forces to crack down on fraud.

00:05Euronews is following them in this special series called The Food Detectives.

00:10In this episode, we're following the team fighting fake honey in Spain.

00:21Honey can only be made by bees.

00:24However, what's labelled as honey in the shops isn't always pure.

00:27In fact, it can contain all kinds of other illicit sugars, as beekeeping food detective Julio Fernández explains.

00:44The problem is widespread.

00:46One study found that nearly half of the honey imported into the EU had been mixed with other sugars.

00:52It makes us feel bad for farmers who love our profession.

00:56Because that type of honey makes us a bad competition in the market

01:00because they reach very cheap prices with which traditional agriculture can't compete.

01:04Food detective Armando Menendez from the EU's Watson project is working on a camera that can spot fake honey.

01:11The camera can also determine which plant nectar the bees consumed, which has an impact on its market value.

01:18It's an important tool against mislabeling.

01:20The tool will be able to identify, in real time, what type of botanical origin is the honey.

01:27The tool will be able to identify, in real time, what type of honey is the honey.

01:32And this can help to detect, first, errors and also help the producer to know what type of etiquette they can put in their product.

01:49The food detectives are now testing this small infrared camera to beat honey fraud.

01:54It could be used to check quality at the beekeeper's property, avoiding lengthy and expensive lab tests.

02:00With this device, the person who is going to do the quality controls,

02:05recoge in-situ the honey samples.

02:08They prepare them in a very fast and simple way.

02:12They place them in the sensor.

02:14And in a few seconds, they have information about whether it's a honey that is adulterated or pure.

02:21To better understand how to identify the adulterated honey,

02:24the team built a database of both hive-made honey and sugary syrups that imitate the work of the bees.

02:31Food detective Noemi Quintanel shows us the simple recipe for fake honey.

02:36The adulterated honey are very easy to synthesize.

02:39We start from pure honey and 100% syrup.

02:43We mainly use two syrups, which are the syrups of rice and the corn syrup,

02:47the most used nowadays in the market.

02:49The fake and real honey database is used to train the system to recognize different samples and detect fraud.

03:17This honey research is centered on the Spanish region of Asturias.

03:20It mostly benefits local authorities who can use the camera technology to verify the disease.

03:23quality of honey sold in the region.

03:24And they hope it can be used further afield, too.

03:25This honey research is centered on the Spanish region of Asturias.

03:28It mostly benefits local authorities who can use the camera technology to verify the quality of honey sold in the region.

03:32And they hope it can be used further afield, too.

03:33This honey research is centered on the Spanish region of Asturias.

03:37It mostly benefits local authorities who can use the camera technology to verify the quality of honey sold in the region.

03:44And they hope it can be used further afield, too.

03:46It's a very expected tool.

03:47It's a very expected tool, very necessary tool, and we're hoping that we can homologize it.

03:56It will help consumers to know what milk they are choosing and why they have to pay it.

04:01That added value that milk has will be an important advance, not only for Asturias, not only for Spain, but also for Europe.

04:12While fake honey isn't bad for your health,

04:14the beekeeper Julio encourages consumers to check the quality label when they're buying a jar.

04:19I hope they can finish with the fraud in the sector of the sale of milk.

04:25All those milk that come from different countries, from different origins, from different qualities,

04:32will be subject to the same controls that make us subject to the apicultors or ambassadors of the national territory.

04:39And, above all, to be aware of the people that we have to buy a certified product,

04:44whether it be the cost of the same, because it's a guarantee for the consumer.

04:48That's all for this episode.

04:50Next time on The Food Detectives, we're in Portugal,

04:52where connected vineyards promise total traceability in wine.

04:56See you then.

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