Statement from the Honey Association (British Honey Importers and Packers Association) with reference to the Issue of Genetically Modified Crops

Honey is a pure and natural product that contains no materials other than those gathered by foraging bees.

Members of The Honey Association are not producers of honey – they purchase honey from bee farmers in the UK and a number of producing regions around the world. The Honey Association’s members operate to defined quality standards and demand these standards from all their honey suppliers.

It is The Honey Association’s aim to ensure that all honey used and sold by its members in the UK remains non-GM, in accordance with recent EU legislation.

In the case of GM crop trials in the UK, The Honey Association works closely with the BBKA / BFA and supports the work being done to move hives outside a six mile radius of any test site.

The Honey Association is following developments that could affect honey and has a structured monitoring programme in place, taking samples from origins world-wide.

All analysis conducted to date on raw honey being processed by members of The Honey Association, and on finished product being sold, has proved negative.

Regular testing of honey deliveries by The Honey Association for the presence of GM material will continue.

Continued discussion by Association members with suppliers of honey around the world emphasises the requirement to maintain honey as a non-GM product. Steps are being taken to improve further traceability of all honey sources.

In the unlikely event of honey being adventitiously affected by GM the amount of GM material present is likely to be exceedingly small. Research which has been carried out into the potential pollen content of honey has shown that, at most, no more than 0.00000000003g of GM material would be likely to be present in a 500g jar*. That represents an infinitesimally small amount (¹) and is well below the required labelling threshold, as recommended for honeys and other foodstuffs.

Note (1): The equivalent of one small droplet of water in 20 Olympic –size swimming pools.

* Source: Food Standards Agency                                    18 May 2000

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