Honey has been a part of our diet for the past 8,000 years.  Pure honey is nutritious and good for your health.  Unfortunately, the honey you purchase may not be so pure.

Australia is currently dealing with a scandal of fake honey.  Authorities discovered that some Chinese companies have been selling rice syrup with a claim that it can pass Australia’s tests for imported honey.  Even worse, a recent study found that one in five samples of local Australian honey were fake.

Researchers used an Agilent ICP-MS equipped with an Integrated Sample Introduction System to measure 64 trace elements in honey samples.  Among 38 honey samples from local supermarkets and markets, 18 percent were adulterated.

As I have previously blogged, “Governments estimate that 10 percent of the food we buy is likely adulterated and 7 percent contains fraudulent ingredients.”

Agilent leads the industry with products and services that are used throughout the food production chain, including incoming inspection, new product development, quality control and assurance, and packaging.  We have developed methods for testing and authenticating honey using SPME-GC/MS and ICP-MS.

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For more information go to:

• The Health Benefits of Honey
• Buying fake honey as simple as a Google search (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Fake honey scandal widens to Australian-sourced brands (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Authenticity and geographic origin of global honeys determined using carbon isotope ratios and trace elements
• Chemometric methods for botanical classification of Chinese honey based on the volatile compound profile (application note, PDF)
• Determination of the Region of Origin of Chinese Honey by ICP-MS with MPP Chemometric Software (Agilent ICP-MS Journal, PDF)
• Agilent ICP-MS Systems
• Agilent in Food Safety
• Agilent Food Testing & Agriculture Solutions