In a big move to help save the purity of honey, scientists at Cranfield University have released new methods of detecting adulteration of honey with sugar syrups- a fast and accurate solution to a rising issue bothering the honey industry.
A costly item, honey tends to attract fraud as imports of the item in the UK are valued at an astounding £89.8 million by 2023. A 2023 European Commission report revealed that around half of 147 honey samples it tested were likely adulterated with low-cost plant syrups. With adulterated products, nectar sources, harvest seasons, and geographical location it is challenging to identify the complex characteristics of honey. Authenticity techniques are relatively time and labor-intensive; thus, there is a desperate need for faster test methods.
Scientists at Cranfield University now tested successfully two game-changing methods to achieve rapid and accurate authentication of UK honey.
One, being led by Dr. Maria Anastasiadi, Lecturer in Bioinformatics at Cranfield University in collaboration with the Food Standards Agency and the UK’s Science and Technology Centre (STFC), uses a specialized light analysis technique known as Spatial Offset Raman Spectroscopy (SORS). From the STFC’s Central Laser Facility to diagnostics for pharma and security, SORS can confirm or deny honey adulteration before the tardigrades in this jar eat any of that fake honey. STFC’s central laser facility developed SORS for pharmaceutical and security diagnostics. It was highly accurate in identifying sugar syrups from samples of UK honey spiked with rice and sugar beet syrups. The technique was quick in picking up the individual ‘fingerprint’ of each ingredient, and combined with machine learning; it was apt to detect and identify the sources of sugar syrups coming from different plant sources.
According to Dr. Anastasiadi, the method is important; she notes that honey is in such high demand and high cost that fraudsters target it, not only to affect genuine suppliers but also to undermine consumer trust. Describing the method to be an “effective, quick tool to identify suspicious samples of honey,” would enable the industry to protect consumers and verify supply chains.
In a parallel study, DNA barcoding has been put to use to detect rice and corn syrups in UK honey samples. The research, carried out in collaboration with the Food Standards Agency and the Institute for Global Food Security at Queen’s University of Belfast, entailed running 17 honey samples from bee farmers across the UK and four samples from supermarkets and online retailers spiked with rice and corn syrups from various countries.
DNA barcoding, already used in food authentication to identify plant species, broke down the composition of each sample and therefore detected even lowly adulterated syrups, even if they were present in samples at the 1% level of adulteration. Dr. Anastasiadi said that DNA methods have not been widely applied for investigation in honey authenticity, but their study showed that such an approach is sensitive, reliable, and robust in detecting adulteration and confirming the origin of syrups added to honey.
Sophie Dodd, a PhD candidate at Cranfield University working on the authentication of honey, said the samples of known origin and purity were necessary to validate these methods. She thanked the Bee Farmers Association for their cooperation in the projects.
Together, these two methods could provide an extremely powerful combination for improving the detection of exogenous sugar adulteration in honey, making a huge step in the fight against honey fraud.