In 2025, FDA sampled domestic and imported honey to detect food fraud. Consistent with previous years, the rate of fraud was low, but still high enough to emphasize the ongoing vulnerability of honey to economically motivated adulteration.
According to a report by the Swedish Food Agency, food fraud costs Swedish society an estimated $13.6 billion SEK (approximately $1.5 billion USD) annually. The agency is preparing upcoming government directives to implement measures to address the growing problem of food fraud.
In a testing and sampling assignment conducted from 2022–2024 to determine the prevalence of economically motivated adulteration among imported frozen seafood, FDA found that 36 percent of the samples were violative for short weighting.
The European Commission is taking strides to improve honey authenticity, including setting new origin labeling requirements, and the development of harmonized traceability requirements and improved methods of composition analysis and origin tracing. The Commission is assembling a group of experts called the “Honey Platform” to advise this work and is accepting applications.
Results of sampling and testing of imported honey for signs of economically motivated adulteration conducted by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in 2022–2023 has revealed only 3 percent of samples to be violative.
With regard to the recently recalled, lead-contaminated applesauce packages that have caused lead poisoning among dozens of children, Jim Jones, Deputy Commissioner for Human Foods at the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), recently shared that the agency’s leading theory is economically motivated adulteration of cinnamon used in the products.
Scientists have developed a small, easy-to-produce, and cost effective sensor that can detect water adulteration of honey, a commodity that is often the subject of fraudulent food production practices.
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) conducted an assignment to collect and test imported honey in 2021 and 2022 for economically motivated adulteration (also known as food fraud), finding 10 percent of samples to be adulterated.
