About 80 percent of honey products sold in groceries, souvenir shops, and online platforms have been found to be impure and contain syrup, researchers from the Department of Science and Technology-Philippine Nuclear Research Institute (DoST-PNRI) have found out.

Researchers disclosed that the honey products contain syrups made from sugar cane and corn after making nuclear-based tests. They said that this "fraudulent practice" allows manufacturers to increase the volume of their products while reducing the production costs.

"Sixty-two out of the 76 (82 percent) of honey brands that were found to be adulterated were composed of 95 percent  C4 sugar syrup. So, they are not actually adulterated but they are just completely purely sugar syrup," said DoST-PNRI Dr. Angel T. Bautista VII.

Bautista said impure honey proliferate the Philippine market.

According to him, 12 out of 16 or 75 percent of local honey brands sold either in groceries or souvenir shops are not entirely honey. In addition, a staggering 87 percent or 64 out of 74 of local honey products sold online are impure.

Forty-one imported honey products marketed in local stores were not found to be adulterated.

“The problem is that people are being tricked,” Bautista said. 

"You may be buying honey for its wonderful health benefits, but because of adulteration, you may actually just be buying pure sugar syrup. Consuming too much pure sugar syrup can lead to harmful health effects,” he added.

DoST-PNRI said that impure honey can seriously damage the local industry for it can pull down the price of honey. Fake honey can be sold as low as one-third of the original price of the authentic honey.

“Imagine, incomes that are supposed to be for our honest beekeepers and honey producers are being lost instead due to adulteration and fraud. This is affecting our local honey industry so badly that we estimate that they are losing P200 million per year,” Bautista lamented.

According to the Philippine National Standard for Honey of the Bureau of Agriculture and Fisheries Standards, honey sold in the market must not have any food additives and other substances.

If so, any substance added to the mixture must be declared in the labeling. Moreover, the geographical location where the honey was sourced should be written in labels.

Honey is one of the most common food items being replicated all over the world. While its demand can make honey farming a promising business, it also became a subject of fraudulent production.

The DoST-PNRI researchers came up with these surprising, sobering findings through the stable carbon isotope ratio analysis.

 Bautista and his team have already forwarded their findings to the Department of Agriculture and the Food and Drug Administration.

“If we just release the names of the companies, they may stop for a while. But no one can stop them from faking honey again in the future. If we incorporate these isotope-based standards into our regulatory system and the Philippine National Standards, then we think it will be long-lasting solution to this problem,”  Bautista reported.

They also call for stricter policies, regulation, and control measures to protect the honey industry and buyers.

Bautista leads a laboratory which studies application of nuclear and isotope techniques in the environment, geology, and food authentication.

Joining him in this study are Marco R. Lao and Norman DS Mendoza from the DoST-PNRI and Dr. Cleofas F. Cervancia, a retired professor of the University of the Philippines Los Baños (UPLB) who previously led its bee program.

They presented their DoST-funded study in the Philippine Nuclear Research and Development Conference which was held online during the Atomic Energy Week of DoST-PNRI.