Introduction to Food Fraud
Food crime mostly goes unreported, making it difficult to grasp its scale. It can include diluting or substituting ingredients, altering documents, or going through unapproved processes. One 2025 estimate suggests that food crime costs the global economy around £81bn ($110bn) a year.
Common Targets of Food Fraud
Fraudsters tend to target commonly consumed foods, like dairy, and high-value foods, like olive oil. Along with alcohol, seafood, and edible oils, honey is frequently among the most common foods that are faked. Plant-based syrup, such as glucose syrup derived from sugar cane, can be half the price of genuine honey, or even less.
The Complexity of Honey
Dr. Juraj Majtán, who heads a lab studying bees and bee products at the Institute of Molecular Biology, understands well just how biologically complex honey is. It contains hundreds of compounds, and there are many diverse types and sources of honey. One result is that it’s challenging to detect whether the honey in a jar genuinely comes from honeybees from a particular place, or has been mixed with syrup derived from rice, wheat, corn, or sugar beets.
Detecting Fake Honey
There are a variety of methods to test for suspicious honey. Some analyze chemical bonds to compare them against genuine honey samples. Others analyze isotopes to determine where a product likely originated. But currently, there is no single method that can say that this honey is fake honey, according to Dr. Majtán.
The Harms of Food Fraud
The harms from faked honey are mostly to the livelihoods of beekeepers. But food crimes can pose dangers to human health, because of the presence of potential allergens or toxic chemicals. Back in 2008, Dr. Selvarani Elahi was caring for her newborn daughter while growing horrified about the scandal of melamine-tainted infant formula in China. At least six babies died from kidney damage linked to the chemical.
Preventing Food Fraud
Dr. Elahi remains alert to the possibility of fraud infiltrating other types of foods. For instance, LGC is advising the UK government and working on DNA methods to identify foods containing the four insect species allowed for sale for human consumption. Fraudsters could theoretically attempt to pass off a different insect species as one of those four.
