Legislation of honey criteria and standards

Abstract

Differences between European legislation and revised Codex Alimentarius standards exist, and refer to the definition, the claim of the country of origin, honey of low enzymes and the adoption of Baker’s honey. Furthermore, different countries maintain dated quality criteria that do not coincide with the provisions of Codex or EU directives. The parameters that vary are mainly the moisture content, HMF, diastase activity, electrical conductivity, sugars and the microscopical justification. The necessity to adopt national rules is imposed mainly by the absence of provisions regarding the characteristics of monofloral honey, the declaration of the geographical origin of the product, the natural deviation of different types of honey and the quality rating of domestic honey. To address the problem that exists in international legislation regarding honey, we propose adopting minimum requirements as mandatory for all countries that produce, import or export honey.