Criminal honey laundering: Chinese honey sold in North America is more likely to be stamped as [View all]

[snagglepuss]

Indonesian, Malaysian or Taiwanese, due to a growing multimillion dollar (global) laundering system designed to keep the endless supply of cheap and often contaminated Chinese honey moving into the U.S., where tariffs have been implemented to staunch the flow and protect its own struggling industry.

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“It is widely known those countries have no productive capacity to justify those quantities,” said Mr. Phipps, the honey markets expert.

He said a recent EU decision to ban honey from India over worries of lead and other contaminates – much of it widely suspected to be of Chinese origin – has only increased odds that more Chinese honey is bound for U.S. borders.

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Most honey comes from China, where beekeepers are notorious for keeping their bees healthy with antibiotics banned in North America because they seep into honey and contaminate it; packers there learn to mask the acrid notes of poor quality product by mixing in sugar or corn-based syrups to fake good taste.

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In the U.S., a hefty tariff – more than two dollars for every kilogram of Chinese-origin honey – was levied. But the tax only temporarily dammed the flow. Official Chinese honey exports to the U.S. fell, but the country’s honey production capacity increased, according to statistics collected by the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations.

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A bonus to those in the laundering scheme, U.S. food inspectors had a more lax approach to inspecting shipments that did not appear to have a Chinese connection. Tests conducted by food inspectors are based on country-of-origin information; if Chinese roots aren’t declared on shipments, inspectors will not test for the chemicals associated with honey production in China, meaning contaminated loads are less likely to be detected or seized and can still be sold for consumption. The same is true of honey diluted with cheaper sweeteners, which is often passed off to consumers as the real thing.




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