High-tech honey analysis reveals labelling inconsistencies

Embargoed until: Publicly released: 2022-03-15 11:59

New Zealand

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New NZ research says there could be a new, faster way to analyse the authenticity of honey than conventional methods. Hyperspectral imaging has been widely applied to other foods like sesame oil, meat, fruit, and milk, but not much has been done until now to see if it works for liquid gold. The team analysed the botanical origins of 56 NZ honey products, including using methods found to be up to 99% accurate as trialled on their database. The analysis also found that most honey products that were labelled as having the same botanical origin actually differed from each other, while some producers labelled similar honey products with different botanical origins. They say these findings might inspire future studies to examine the authenticity of honey.