True Source Honey issues alert for honey shipped from Thailand, Taiwan

The non-profit True Source Honey Certification program (www.TrueSourceHoney.com), with a mission to protect consumers, retailers and manufacturers from illegally sourced honey, issued an alert concerning honey labeled as coming from Thailand or Taiwan. Honey importers, retailers and manufacturers are advised to proceed carefully and consider additional safeguards if they are buying low-priced honey labeled as produced in Thailand or Taiwan.

They should ensure honey imports are certified by an independent third party, True Source Honey said. Thailand currently has one True Source Certified exporter, while Taiwan has no True Source Certified exporters.

The illegal practice of transshipping honey threatens the U.S. honey industry by undercutting fair market prices and damaging honey's reputation for quality and safety, the Washington, D.C.-based organization said. The United States has had repeated problems with honey that is illegally transshipped from China through third countries to avoid anti-dumping duties. The quality and purity of this honey is also suspect because it is not sold according to regular protocols. For example, some exported Chinese honey has been found to be adulterated with banned antibiotics.

“What we’re seeing based on the trade data is strong evidence of two possible routes of Chinese honey coming into the U.S. illegally,” said True Source Honey Executive Director Gordon Marks. “One route would be directly through Thailand, and the second may be through both Thailand and Taiwan. Such circumvention schemes would not be new — this is the same type of pattern we’ve seen repeatedly from China over many years, including recent cases of circumvention through Latvia, Malaysia and Indonesia that were pursued for prosecution by U.S. government authorities.”

These current export patterns of concern are based on calculations from the International Trade Centre, a joint agency of the World Trade Organization and the United Nations, and trade data from U.S., Thai and Taiwanese government sources, True Source Honey stated.