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Wednesday, October 22, 2014

Honey sales booming overtaking jam as the nation’s favourite spread. Last year Britain spent more than £100million on it.



Tesco Every Day Value Honey

  1.  
Calories49Sodium0 mg
Total Fat0 gPotassium0 mg
Saturated0 gTotal Carbs0 g
Polyunsaturated0 gDietary Fiber0 g
Monounsaturated0 gSugars12 g
Trans0 gProtein0 g
Cholesterol0 mg  
Vitamin A0%Calcium0%
Vitamin C0%Iron0%
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.


Jams and preserves 

  1.  
Calories56Sodium6 mg
Total Fat0 gPotassium15 mg
Saturated0 gTotal Carbs14 g
Polyunsaturated0 gDietary Fiber0 g
Monounsaturated0 gSugars10 g
Trans0 gProtein0 g
Cholesterol0 mg  
Vitamin A0%Calcium0%
Vitamin C3%Iron1%
*Percent Daily Values are based on a 2000 calorie diet. Your daily values may be higher or lower depending on your calorie needs.


Honey sales booming overtaking jam as the nation’s favourite spread.
Last year Britain spent more than £100 million on it.



Mānuka honey is a monofloral honey produced in New Zealand and Australia from the nectar of the mānuka tree. Honey has demonstrated antibacterial properties in vitro, but there is no conclusive evidence of benefit in medical use. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81nuka_honey

Counterfeiting and other price-related problems

In the wake of the high premium paid for mānuka honey, the majority of product now labelled as such worldwide is counterfeit or adulterated. According to research by UMFHA, the main trade association of New Zealand mānuka honey producers, whereas 1,700 tons of mānuka honey are made there annually representing almost all the world's production, some 10,000 tons of produce is being sold internationally as mānuka honey, including 1,800 tons in the UK.

In governmental agency tests in the UK between 2011 and 2013, a majority of mānuka-labelled honeys sampled lacked the non-peroxide anti-microbial activity exclusive to mānuka honey. Likewise, of 73 samples tested by UMFHA in Britain, China and Singapore in 2012-13, 43 tested negative on the same count. Separate UMFHA tests in Hong Kong found that 14 out of 55 mānuka honeys sampled had been adulterated with syrup. In 2013 the UK Food Standards Agency asked all trading standards authorities to alert all mānuka honey vendors to the need for legal compliance.

There is a confusing range of systems for rating the strength of mānuka honeys. In one UK chain in 2013, two products were labelled “12+ active” and “30+ total activity” respectively for “naturally occurring peroxide activity” and another “active 12+” in strength for “total phenol activity”, yet none of the three was labelled for the strength of the non-peroxide antimicrobial activity specific to mānuka honey.

One reason for bona fide mānuka honeys to vary in the last regard is that the bees cannot be forced to forage only on mānuka flowers, especially given the pressures toward maximal exploitation of known blooms. So intense is the demand for the correct trees that New Zealand honey farmers have been using helicopters to locate them and deploy hives nearby. There have been increasing turf disputes between producers operating close to large mānuka tree clumps, and also cases reported of many hives being variously sabotaged or stolen.

At least one British supermarket has taken to stocking jars of the honey in tagged security cassettes, such were the losses from shoplifting.