Honey Savior: beekeepers opposed labeling of their products
The Ministry of Industry and Trade is going to expand the list of products subject to mandatory labeling starting from March 1. These will include honey, products based on it, bee products, as well as artificial honey. However, the market opposed this measure: associations of beekeepers are confident that mandatory registration in the "Honest Sign" will not be able to stop the arrival of counterfeit products on the shelves, but at the same time it will lead to the withdrawal of most honey producers into the gray zone and an increase in the cost of their products. For more information, see the Izvestia article.
The draft law on amendments to the list of products subject to labeling was published on the regulatory acts portal in early October. According to the draft of the Ministry of Industry and Trade, from March 2026, cereals, cereals, legumes, other products of the flour and cereal industry, instant potatoes, breakfast cereals, as well as honey, products based on it, bee products and artificial honey, mixed or not mixed with natural honey, will fall under the labeling.
Izvestia sent a request to the Ministry of Industry and Trade and the Ministry of Agriculture.
How to determine the naturalness of honey
Anna Brandorf, head of the Laboratory of Beekeeping at the FANC of the North-East (Kirov), told Izvestia that the quality and origin of beekeeping products, including honey, is regulated by the order of the Ministry of Agriculture dated October 18, 2022 "On approval of veterinary rules for the appointment and conduct of veterinary and sanitary examination of natural bee honey, perga and royal jelly intended for processing and sale". There are also current GOST 19792-2017 on natural honey and GOST 31766-2012 on monoflora honey.
— These documents allow us to fully identify the naturalness of honey and its origin, — said the interlocutor of Izvestia. — The analysis of honey according to these GOST standards, when determining all indicators, reliably shows the naturalness of the product.
The procedure has been worked out, it is performed by accredited laboratories and does not present any difficulties, emphasizes Anna Brandorf.
But it is impossible to determine on your own whether you are buying real honey or not: you need a laboratory analysis, says Valery Mikheev, chairman of the Union of Beekeepers of Russia. Beekeepers are already conducting this analysis if they want to bring the product to the market. Information about the product examination is entered into the federal state information system "Mercury".
— If honey is included in the system, it means that an analysis was made, which showed that a natural product went from the beekeeper to the processor, — said Valery Mikheev. — But the further the honey moves away from the beekeeper, the more opportunities there are to fake, mix or dilute it.
How will honey labeling work?
Alexander Kudashev, Chairman of the Union of Beekeepers and Industrialists, believes that the Honest Sign will duplicate the Mercury system.
— We don't see the point in this: in order to get into Mercury, the beekeeper already needs to conduct tests. If he didn't get into Mercury, then he won't be able to register at Honest Sign either," the source told Izvestia.
The CRPT (operator of the Honest Sign state labeling system) explains that the Honest Sign system is integrated with the federal state information system in the field of veterinary medicine (FGIS VetIS), and Mercury is included in it.
"This allows you to automatically verify data on the production of food products subject to mandatory traceability (in particular, honey) and their introduction into circulation," the company explained to Izvestia. — For example, thanks to the integration of the Honest Sign with the VetIS system, the share of counterfeiting in the dairy industry has decreased from 30% to 0.01%. This is a direct protection of the consumer and honest producers.
It is indicated that FGIS "VetIS" is responsible for the control of the raw material base: the system records whether the manufacturer has sufficient raw materials to produce the declared quantity of finished products. Thanks to the integration of the two systems, traceability is ensured not only for the marked product, but also for its origin. Thus, in combination, labeling and FGIS "VetIS" make it possible to confirm the legality of the origin of products and the conformity of production volumes with the declared raw material base, the CRPT explains.
The labeling system assigns a unique digital code to each product unit, which should ensure full traceability of products from the manufacturer to the consumer. This code contains information about the date of manufacture, expiration date, permits and other information confirming the legality of the origin of the goods and the accuracy of information about it.
Why beekeepers are against the "Fair Sign"
Beekeepers also fear that the new labeling will lead to new costs for market participants.
Now, according to Valery Mikheev, 94% of beekeepers exist in the form of private farms — personal subsidiary farms. They sell their surplus goods to the market.
— Conditionally, they sell 800 kg of 1 ton of honey to their regular customers directly after the honey processing, — he explains. — And they give up the surplus. To do this, you need to perform tests. It's not cheap, and not every beekeeper can afford it, which means they can enter the market.
Alexander Kudashev emphasizes: this year, a beekeeper needs to spend from 20 to 140 thousand rubles on honey analysis, depending on the region. At the same time, beekeepers do not have such subsidies and support measures in the form of agricultural start-ups as plant growers receive.
If they also introduce an "Honest Sign" now, then many beekeepers will simply go into the shadows, the Izvestia interlocutor believes. This will be a setback: in recent years, many have gradually begun to enter the "white" zone in the market, registering their business as sole proprietors, farms, LLC. Due to the introduction of new requirements, many will return to selling honey only to their customer base, without entering the market.
"Many processors are calling me now: they can't buy honey with tests this year because the procedure has become more expensive," says Valery Mikheev. — There is enough honey to put on store shelves until the New Year, but then it is unclear where to get it from.
Thus, Valery Mikheev is sure, the interests of producers of "honey" of artificial origin are simply being lobbied. In his opinion, the trend is that soon only "honey product" will remain on store shelves, or more precisely, artificially created products that are not related to honey at all, but GFS — that is, glucose—fruit syrup. Recently, the SFS has been able to partially remove it from the shelves, but the new rules, Valery Mikheev believes, can bring it back.
"We believe that the volume of counterfeiting on the market will only increase due to the introduction of mandatory labeling," agrees Alexander Kudashev.
Babken Ispiryan, Deputy Chairman of the Council of the People's Farmer Association, is also confident that the situation will only get worse. Moreover, he has a negative attitude towards labeling dairy products, which became mandatory a year ago.
"During this time, the problem of adulteration of dairy products has not been solved, but at the same time we have lost a large number of conscientious farmers who, unable to withstand the additional financial and organizational burden, simply went into the shadows," he told Izvestia. — And 90% of honey is already in the unorganized sector of private farms.
In addition, Valery Mikheev expects that honey production will become more expensive, and its final cost will increase.
Head of the "Popular Front. Analyst Olga Pozdnyakova, however, notes that labeling usually contributes significantly less than one percent to the cost of goods. And for the consumer, labeling will mean at least monitoring the sale of expired goods.
The CRPT also emphasizes, with reference to data from the Ministry of Finance, that the impact of labeling on the cost of products is no more than 1% over six years.
— The assessment is also confirmed by market participants of already implemented product groups. This is the maximum value, and the effect is one—time," the company told Izvestia. — The HSE study shows that in categories such as cereals, pasta, mixtures, porridges and honey, the impact on the price over six years will be about 0.56%.
How much counterfeit is there in the honey market
Alexander Kudashev notes that counterfeiting in the market is now estimated at about 70%. In most cases, this is just GFS: the product is not necessarily harmful, but it is definitely not honey.
Another method of falsification is when rapeseed or sunflower honey is passed off as a product of another origin: lime, floral, Bashkir, Altai, etc. This is also a deception of the consumer.
Anna Brandorf, referring to the research of the beekeeping laboratory of the FANC of the North-East in Kirov, notes that about 15% of the products presented fell under the so-called assortment falsification; almost half — under information and cost. Only 10% was directly counterfeit — the product did not fit the definition of honey at all.
— The most common type of falsification is the sale of honey from sunflower or rapeseed under the label of forest, mountain, lime, etc. honey, — she said. — At the same time, everything that is sold as, for example, "lingonberry honey" is generally difficult to classify as counterfeit, since it is an industrial product that has nothing to do with honey. It does not fall under falsification and control, but it is this product that is essentially a counterfeit.
Alexander Kudashev notes that most of the counterfeiting is found in retail chains, but you can also encounter it at large fairs in large cities. Often, for example, you can see honey with royal jelly, which stands outdoors. But royal jelly must be stored frozen, otherwise it begins to lose its qualities within an hour.
Another common falsification at such fairs is the so—called perfect honey, which is very expensive but not real. There is not even such a plant.
— There is a kurai, but it does not grow in large enough plantations to harvest honey from it. Even where there is dried apricot, its share will not exceed 3-5% in flower honey," notes Alexander Kudashev.
The expert of the direction "Popular Front. Analytics", Deputy Dean of the Biology and Technology Faculty of the Altai State Agrarian University (Barnaul) Alexey Popelyaev notes that there are both simple schemes when cheap varieties of honey are passed off as elite, and complex technological manipulations with overheating and additives.
"But the main stream of counterfeiting does not come from ordinary beekeepers, but from large processing companies acting as intermediaries between producers and retail chains," he told Izvestia.
It is not yet possible to say that labeling with an "Honest Mark" will be able to guarantee the authenticity of the product, he emphasizes.
— Full laboratory control of all batches is not carried out, there are still opportunities for volume manipulation. The work is based on the principle of hubs: honey comes from different suppliers, then it is mixed and blended to a homogeneous state, and therefore it is impossible to establish the origin of the product in a particular jar," says Alexey Popelyaev.
At the same time, he says, the efforts made to digitalize the industry are bearing fruit: with further increased traceability, the Mercury system simply will not allow unaccounted-for honey shipments, the expert is sure.
And Alexander Kudashev emphasizes: it is possible to introduce labeling in the "Honest Sign", but only after the appearance of a full-fledged beekeeping support program.
— It is very difficult to get rid of counterfeit artificially. But if we support the producer and bring natural honey to the market for general access, a high—quality product will gradually replace counterfeit honey - of course, subject to some restrictive regulations on the part of the state. However, the measures taken so far may hit conscientious beekeepers," he believes.
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