PROTECTION FOR HONEY

Southland Times, Issue 23308, 18 September 1937, Page 14

PROTECTION FOR HONEY

SUBSTITUTES ON MARKET EXTENSIVE DECEPTIONS A hint has been given by Sir Kingsley Wood, Minister of Health, states The Sunday Times (London), that he may introduce legislation which will protect the use of the word “honey” and thus put an end to one of the most extensive deceptions at present practised in the sale of food. The secretary of the British Bee Keepers’ Association stated that the sales of honey substitutes as honey in Great Britain actually exceed the sales of the genuine product of the honey bee. These substitutes consist mainly of glucose, and, according to analyses made for the association, one brand sold in vast quantities contains no more than 12 per cent, (or one-eighth) of pure honey. Jars containing the substitutes are prominently labelled “Prepared Honey” and bear pictures of bees or beehives. As a precaution against prosecution under the Food and Drugs Adulteration Act, 1928, the labels also bear words in small type to the effect that the contents are a blend of honeys and pure inverted sugar. No mention is made of their relative proportions. Jars containing about Boz of the substitute are sold at 6d, and in the opinion of the association do not contain more than one halfpennyworth of pure honey. The same sized jar containing only pure honey would cost at least 9d or lOd.

This and other food deceptions were considered by a departmental committee appointed by the Ministry of Health as long ago as 1931, and a report recommending new legislation was presented to Parliament three years later. Ever since then the association has been pressing it vigorously for action, and early this year it sent a deputation to the Ministry of Health. It was pointed out that the Governments of Australia, New Zealand and Canada, which are large exporters of honey, as well as leading produce merchants and importers, supported the association’s claim for complete legal protection of the word “honey.” One remarkable fact disclosed was that when a large vendor of genuine honey tried to place an order for jars, he was told that it could not be fulfilled owing to great pressure of orders from the firms selling the honey substitutes.

The urgency of legislation to protect a valuable natural food is the greater at present because the season’s crop is not likely to be very bountiful. Losses of bees were extraordinarily heavy during the winter, owing probably to the excessive rainfall and the unusually mild weather, which kept the bees more active than usual.