The World Beekeeping Awards has revealed it will not award a prize for honey next year, following warnings that there has been fraud in the global supply chain, with some products bulked out with cheaper sugar syrup. While Apimondia, the International Federation of Beekeepers’ Associations, will still hold its biannual congress in Denmark next year, where they will showcase global honey, it says it will not be giving out awards - for the first time.
![[According to experts, the best way to ensure your honey is unadulterated is to buy directly from local beekeepers. As this will be impossible for many, one expert said it's worth being aware that if the label says 'a blend of non-EU countries', that could be an indication that the product has been adulterated]](https://i.dailymail.co.uk/1s/2024/12/02/11/92693859-14148259-image-m-3_1733137519627.jpg)
A statement from Apimondia said: 'We will celebrate honey in many ways at the congress, but honey will no longer be a category, and thus no honey judging, in the World Beekeeping Awards. 'This change to remove honey as a category was necessitated by the inability to have honey fully tested for adulteration.'.
It comes after beekeepers have warned that the industry and food watchdogs have failed to tackle fraudulent products. However, many products have been rejection from entry into honey competitions in recent times over concerns of tampering, with the awards in Montreal in 2019 turning down some 45 per cent of entries due to suspected tampering.
That year marked the first that lab tests were introduced for the honey awards. Those products which did not pass the tests were taken out of competition and replaced with a card which said: 'This exhibit has failed laboratory analysis and cannot be judged further.
