Consumers and Health

Honey ‘authenticity testing’, viral deception spreads across Europe

February 12, 2025

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Honey ‘authenticity testing’ viral deception spreads across Europe. Most recently in Latvia, where the national beekeepers association demanded the same unaccredited Estonian startup Celvia to perform an unreliable, experimental ‘DNA test’ based on a tiny database. (1)

Table of Contents

1) Latvia, the fake honey hoax

LBB – the Latvian Beekeepers’ Society – claims to have 3,600 members out of a total of 4-5,000 beekeepers in the country. With national production estimated at around 2.3-2.4 thousand tonnes per year. Its chairman Valters Brusbārdis says that Latvian beekeepers ‘have long suspected’ the import of fake honey from China, and the ‘main suspicion’ that Chinese honey ‘is synthesized in the factory, not produced by the honey bee’. (2)

Latvian beekeepers – like those in Germany, UK, Austria and Finland (3,4) – have found a way to give visibility to their unfounded suspicions. By demanding the Estonian startup Celvia to perform an ‘authenticity test’ on 20 samples of honey which were bought in the local supermarkets. So as to obtain a paper where 80% samples are deemed to be ‘fake’. The real fallacy, however, is the Celvia’s method of analysis, and thus its results.

2) Unreliable ‘authenticity testing’

FoodQS – the world’s first laboratory for honey testing, with 25 years of history and over 10.000 analyses/year – has already made it clear that the analyses conducted by Celvia are completely unreliable, for the following reasons:

– Celvia’s database (made of 500 honeys, of which more than half come from Estonia alone, whose area is approximately 1/333.333 that of the top five honey exporting countries in the EU, ed.) is in no way representative of the extreme variety of honeys distributed internationally, and of their blends;

– the method used by Celvia (DNA analysis of pollen residues contained in honey and their comparison with the limited database mentioned above) is not supported by the information necessary for its validation, accreditation and scientific evaluation;

– the suitability and effectiveness of the method in detecting the authenticity of honey lacks the essential data (i.e. tests on honey adulterated with sugar syrup from C4 and C3 plants) on the basis of which the analysis methods have been standardized at international level;

– scientific evidence on the suitability of the identified criteria (DNA profile, quantity or quality) to draw clear conclusions on the hypothetical adulteration of honey is missing;

– claims that ‘adulterated honey’ can be recognized by the sensory properties of the samples alone, that have also been used by Celvia, are false and unreliable. (4)

3) Viral deception, and its likely outcomes

The viral deception about the supposed ‘non-authenticity’ of almost all the honey distributed in Europe damages first of all consumer confidence in its supply chain. With the risk of collapsing demand for this natural foodstuff and justifying its replacement by other, cheaper sources of sugars by the bakery and confectionery industries.

The likely effects of this smear campaign will therefore affect:

– beekeepers in Europe. The fear of widespread food fraud will drive consumers and user industries away from its use. regardless of its geographical origin. As was the case with the BSE (mad cow disease) scandal throughout Europe in the 1990s;

– beekeepers in non-EU countries, including developing countries where beekeeping is an important resource for rural, as well as social, economic and environmental development (biodiversity), as well as women empowerment;

– European agri-food chain, from farm to fork. The loss of confidence in the agricultural supply chain, the processing industry, distribution and the system of official public controls causes damage to the entire social and economic system. Damage already seen in the most serious food safety scandals in the EU in the last 30 years;

– consumer health. The replacement of honey with added sugars of various kinds (i.e. sugar, high-fructose syrups), artificial sweeteners and chemical flavourings may contribute to the intake of ultra-processed foods and substances that have a negative impact on populations’ health.

4) Defamation

Maxima, Rimi, Lidl, and Mere retail chains in Latvia were the victims of defamation in the local press, which displayed in a table the names and labels of the honeys they marketed with the words ‘Not Authentic!’ in bold and red letters. (1)

Consumers are thus led to believe that to believe that they may be dealing with dangerous or otherwise unhealthy food. As well as tarnishing the reputation of the retail chains themselves and their quality control systems, which are subject to rigorous certification.

This defamation campaign, carried out throughout Europe, is based solely on the results of ‘authenticity testing’ conducted by the Estonian start-up Celvia. Which – besides being unreliable from a scientific point of view – are devoid of any forensic value.

5) First reactions in Latvia

Maxima Grupė UAB – the largest employer in the Baltic states, with 1,599 stores in Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and Bulgaria and a platinum rating awarded for three consecutive years by the Institute for Corporate Sustainability and Responsibility – has clarified that:

– it only sources its honey from officially registered suppliers, and

– it entrusts its analyses to the certified laboratory Bior, in Latvia. (2)

PVD – the Latvian Food and Veterinary Service, through the director of Plant Products, Beverages, and Organic Farming Supervision Unit – has also said that the PVD monitors both companies, honey packers and traders. ‘Of the 33 samples taken last year, all met the honey quality requirements’.

6) Restoring legality, and truth

Restoring legality and truth is indispensable and urgent, on both fronts:

– use of only official analysis methods to verify the quality and authenticity of honey, in compliance with EU rules and the ‘cascade principle’; (5)

– fact-checking, by journalists, before spreading false alarms and defamatory news about operators acting in full compliance with the law.

7) Where do the Common Agricultural Policy funds go?

As a postscript to the above analysis, a consideration is due on the final fate of the EU’s agricultural funding for rural development received by the start-up Celvia in Tartu, Estonia, for the development of a laboratory – to date not accredited for honey analyses – and research into an experimental analysis method. (6)

CAP funds infrastructures and activities should serve to support the rural economy in the Member States, also by providing research and innovation tools. The instrumentalisation of these tools to denigrate an entire production sector is questionable, at least. Even more, since scientific rigour and good faith seem to be lacking.

Dario Dongo