Learn · 3 min read
How to spot fake honey
Honey is one of the most frequently adulterated foods in the world. The most common fraud is mixing in cheap sugar syrup. The good news: although you can’t detect adulteration at home, there’s a lot you can do to make sure you buy real honey.
How big is the problem?
In the European Commission’s 2021–2022 “From the Hives” action, 46% of 320 import samples taken at the border turned out to be suspicious – compared with only 14% in the previous investigation in 2015–2017. For samples from some countries, the share of suspicious honey was strikingly high. To be fair: these are suspicions raised by the authorities, not final rulings, and part of the industry disputed the testing method.
Detecting adulteration is hard even in the lab, because the composition of real honey varies a great deal naturally. Some syrups (corn, cane sugar) can be detected with isotope analysis; others (rice, sugar beet) are much harder to find.
Home tricks don’t work
Dropping honey into water, the thumb test, the match test or the paper test are not reliable: modern syrups “pass” them easily, while real honey sometimes fails. It’s also a myth that honey that crystallises has sugar added – quite the opposite: crystallisation is a natural property of real honey.
What to really look out for
A few simple points are worth more than any trick:
- Read the label: where does the honey come from, and if it’s a blend, from which countries? Since summer 2026 this must also be given in percentages.
- Be suspicious if the price is unrealistically low – the European Commission gives the same advice. According to KSH (the Hungarian Central Statistical Office), the average consumer price of a kilo of acacia honey in 2025 was 5,500 Ft.
- Buy from a beekeeper you know, whom you can ask where their hives stand and when they extracted the honey. The label of producer’s honey also shows the producer’s name and contact details.
- Taste it: monofloral honeys have a distinctive, recognisable flavour and aroma.
Our honeys mentioned here
Acacia honey
Wildflower honey
Chestnut honeyTerms from the glossary
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