In this interview, Berner explains the massive scale of honey fraud, where 30‑90% of products on supermarket shelves are syrup adulterated and only 10% real honey. He describes how the practice devastates beekeepers worldwide, leading to bankruptcies and organized crime prosecutions by the European Commission. Berner recounts his undercover operation—creating a fake German honey‑trading company, traveling to China, and infiltrating honey and syrup factories—to locate NMR‑proof syrups, primarily rice syrup, used for fraud. He details the development of scientific detection methods, including DNA and proteomics analyses performed by an Estonian laboratory that gained accreditation in April 2026, enabling beekeepers to prove adulteration and pursue legal action. The conversation also covers EU labeling shortcomings, the new regulation distinguishing EU from non‑EU honey, and practical advice for consumers: real honey lingers on the tongue, while fake honey’s flavor fades quickly, and buying directly from local beekeepers is the safest way to ensure authenticity.
Chapters
We are talking about 30 up to 90% syrup and 10% honey left, and that is in a supermarket shelf saying it's honey. Then you also understand the volume in the market. It's not that it's like a small business or something. It's something that is really flooding the market and destroying all beekeepers in the world. For sure it's a crime, and for sure people now get imprisoned for this. We have a couple of people already imprisoned by the action of the European Commission. Because it's personal data, you cannot really publish it, but it's a crime, and it's organized crime also.
So we are here to talk again about Honeyford, and I know we spoke at great length at Appimondia, but I think we should just completely do it all over again because it's got bigger and more important, and you've got some really huge wins to share, haven't you? So I thought I'm just going to give you my top 10 questions and we can talk Honeyford some more.
Yeah, I would like to. It's my passion, as you know.
What was the moment that you realized that you had to do something? It would have obviously bubbled away for a while. You knew Honeyford was out there. What was that moment that you thought, right, Berner needs to take this one on?
This is a moment when I saw all the beekeeper families that are making a living from beekeeping. I saw them suffering and saw them going bankrupt and so on. And I saw all the consequences when you have your beekeeping company going down. And this was the moment when I thought, okay, you have to do something. And we knew this is from honey fraud in the market that is pushing down the prices. So it was something that I had to do. I have so many friends that are beekeepers and they'll make a living, commercial beekeepers that make a living from beekeeping. And when you see When you see all your friends suffering, yeah, you start acting.
Just so we clear it up completely, when you say honey fraud, what do you mean?
When you say honey fraud, honey fraud is adulterating of honey, it's mixing syrup into the honey and selling it as honey. We are not talking about, what, 1, 2, 4, 5% syrup in the honey. We are talking about 30 up to 90% syrup and 10% honey left, and that is in a supermarket shelf saying it's honey. So, and the beekeepers cannot compete with syrup.
And when we say syrup, I just want to break it down so everyone is on like a level playing field. When we say syrup, what do you mean?
There are different kinds of syrups in the world that they are using for adulterating the honey and frauding the honey, but the most used is rice syrup, like rice sugary syrup from rice that is done. But it's also from all different kinds of sources that they use to adulterate the honey. But we're talking about rice syrup. We made up a fake company in Germany and we pretended to be honey traders, and we were pretending to be looking for a syrup that is NMR-proof, so the magnetic resonance spectrophotically proof, so they cannot detect it. And we searched for this honey, now for the syrup, inside in Asia, in China. So I flew down with a beekeeper friend of mine, and we were visiting honey factories, honey traders. We were visiting the syrup factories. We were actually inside these facilities and were taking pictures and videos of it. The dimension of these factories are crazy. And then you also understand the volume in the market. It's not that it's like a small business or something. It's something that is really flooding the market and destroying all beekeepers in the world, all in the world. What is the most common is DNA. So we worked on the DNA for a couple of years. We worked with a laboratory in Estonia and set up like a method to really can see the difference between fraud and adulterated honey and the real honey. And now today, up today, it's accredited now, this laboratory, to do this. So it's officially accredited since April 2026, which is a good success. And now we can use it because beekeepers are investigating and taking samples, and the samples are sent to laboratories and using different methods, and then you can show, okay, it is adulterated by certain things. For example, with proteomics, you would have like foreign proteins in there or enzymes in there that cannot be in real honey. And also the natural enzymes are low or non-existent, and you can show them that there's fraudulent honey. And so with the laboratory results, with the evidence, the beekeepers go to the authorities. So we have now a new regulation inside of Europe that you can label it with— before it was EU, non-EU mixture, mixture of honey. And what does say EU or non-EU? It does say nothing. So actually, as a consumer, you can go into the supermarket and you can see, okay, there's a beekeeper's name and there's an address, there's something they can look for. It doesn't matter if it's an— I'm not against imported honey. I'm against the honey mixtures that are out there that are covering up the adulterating. And so if you're looking for the source of the honey and you can easily see where it comes from, then it's more likely to be good honey. One sign that I find is real honey When you put it in your mouth and put it on your tongue, the taste stays for, let's say, 30 minutes, for a long, long, long, long time. With the fake honey, what I feel, I taste is you put it on your mouth, on the tongue, and it is like, boom, there's a taste and then it's gone. But if you want to be 100% sure, go to your local beekeeper and buy local honey.
But for us in the UK, I would say like the call to action for anybody watching this who normally watches the channel is it's probably going to be beekeepers watching it, but go and tell your friends Yeah. So say, tell your friends what's going on. They might not know. And tell them to tell their friends. And it's just that high-level getting people aware so then more people can start asking the questions and challenging it and saying things like, how can it be €1? I know this is only water, but like, I can't buy the jar for €1. So you're probably going to end up buying the jar for a similar price. Okay, you'll get economies of scale, but the economics don't stack up. You're selling me something that should cost a lot more. What's in it?
