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,
00:31as 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.
00:57This type of honey makes us a lack of competition in the market because they come to a very cheap price
01:02with which traditional agriculture can't compete.
01:05The food detective Armando Menéndez 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.
01:31It's an important tool against mislabeling.
01:34The tool will be able to identify, in real time, what type of botanical origin is the honey.
01:40And this can help first detect the wrong ones,
01:43and also help the producer to know what type of etiquette is the one 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 of the beekeeper's property, avoiding lengthy and expensive lab tests.
02:00Con este dispositivo, la persona que va a hacer los controles de calidad recoge in situ muestras de miel,
02:07las prepara en un portamuestras de forma muy rápida y sencilla, la coloca en el sensor,
02:13y en pocos segundos tiene la información sobre si es una miel que está adulterada o es pura.
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.
02:30Food detective Noemi Quintanel shows us the simple recipe for fake honey.
02:35Las mieles adulteradas son muy fáciles de sintetizar.
02:39Partimos de miel pura y de un sirope 100%.
02:42Principalmente utilizamos dos siropes, que son los siropes de arroz y siropes de maíz,
02:46los más utilizados hoy en día en el mercado.
02:50Ahora pesamos los gramos de sirope necesarios para llevar esta miel adulterada a X porcentaje de adulteración.
03:00Y para finalizar, bueno, debemos realizar una agitación leve para evitar la formación de burbujas.
03:07Y ahora ya tendríamos sintetizado nuestra miel adulterada.
03:10The fake and real honey database is used to train the system to recognize different samples and detect fraud.
03:18A día de hoy, esta base de datos consta de aproximadamente 110 muestras de miel pura y 120 muestras de miel adulterada.
03:24El dispositivo desarrollado en el proyecto Watson podría utilizarse en otro tipo de mieles, aumentando la base de datos,
03:31es decir, midiendo o analizando esas nuevas muestras que se quieren posteriormente medir con este dispositivo.
03:38This honey research is centred on the Spanish region of Asturias.
03:42It mostly benefits local authorities who can use the camera technology to verify the quality of honey sold in the region,
03:49and they hope it can be used further afield, too.
03:51It's a tool that's very expected, very necessary, and we're hoping that we can homologize it.
03:58It will help consumers to know what milk they're choosing and why they have to pay it.
04:03That added value that the milk has, it will be an important advance, not only for Asturias, not only for Spain, but also for Europe.
04:11While fake honey isn't bad for your health,
04:14beekeeper Julio encourages consumers to check the quality label when they're buying a jar.
04:18I hope that we 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,
04:31will be subject to the same controls that make us subject to the apicultors or ambassadors of the national territory.
04:39And, above all, we must be aware of the people that we have to buy a certified product,
04:43whether it be the cost of the same price, because it's a guarantee for the consumer.
04:47That's all for this episode, next time on The Food Detectives, we're in Portugal,
04:52where connected vineyards promise total traceability in wine.
04:55See you then.
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