The UK Government Chemist team, hosted at LGC, has recently had two significant scientific papers published in Nature Portfolio Journal, npj-Science of Food, highlighting the increasing complexity of honey authentication.
The papers (Honey authenticity: the opacity of analytical reports - part 1 defining the problem; and part 2, forensic evaluative reporting as a potential solution) are based on a story that appeared in the UK media in November 2020 - Supermarket brands of honey are 'bulked out with cheap sugar syrups made from rice and corn’ – after which the Food Standards Agency asked the Government Chemist to investigate the methods that underpinned the story.
The papers address the complex composition of honey, and how an interpretive system used in forensic science could help to improve evaluation of analytical findings and assessment of their strength, which, in turn, can help to make authentication of honey more robust.
The authors propose the adoption of ‘evaluative reporting’, which would see the acceptance of a formalised ‘likelihood ratio’ (LR) thought process used in forensic science for evaluation of findings and assessment of their strength. In the absence of consensus on techniques for honey authenticity, adoption of evaluative reporting will allow objective assessment, with equity to all, and a better basis to identify and address honey fraud.
