The Honey Trap

After concerns that honey from overseas is being watered down with cheap rice and corn syrups, Sheila Dillon investigates the scale of global honey fraud. It's a story of complex international supply chains with the world's food security at its heart. In 2023, the European Commission found that 46 per cent of the honey it sampled was suspected to be fraudulent. Just last year at the World Beekeeping Awards the prize for Best Honey had to be cancelled after fears that adulterated honey might be entered. The fake version can be very difficult to detect and beekeepers warn that it is forcing down the price of honey, potentially driving them out of business. So how serious an issue has international honey fraud become and how concerned should consumers in the UK be? Sheila visits Bermondsey Street bees in Essex in search of answers and speaks to the UK's two biggest honey producers - Rowse and Hilltop Honey. Food fraud expert Professor Chris Elliott from Queen's University Belfast analyses the situation and Robin Markwell reports from Copenhagen where the world's largest convention of beekeepers was recently held. Produced for BBC Audio in Bristol by Robin Markwell

You can listen to The Honey Trap online on Radio and Podcast. Open the player on this page to stream the available audio.

The Honey Trap is an episode from The Food Programme by BBC.

This episode is 42:23 long.

This episode was published on Feb 6, 2026.

Yes. Use the heart button on the episode page to add it to your favorite episodes list.

Yes. This page shows related episodes from The Food Programme when more episodes are available from the podcast feed.