What's in Your Honey Nut Cheerios, and Where's It Come From?

The United States normally consumes somewhere between 400 - 450 million pounds of honey each year, but produces between 150 and 200 million pounds. This year's crop will be in the 150 – 175 million pound range when all is said and done. Just so you know, five years ago a 240 million pound crop would be considered normal.

Some fraction of U.S.-produced honey is used in the less expensive, somewhat generic-tasting industrial market – Honey Nut Cheerios, for instance. We use about three times as much industrial honey as table honey ... maybe even more. We import a significant amount of industrial honey.

Table honey, by comparison, is a good-tasting, high-quality and more expensive product. Table honey is generally produced from more common and popular floral sources such as clover, basswood, orange blossom, alfalfa and the like, and certainly the exotic varietal and artisan honeys qualify here. But we don't produce enough for that top end market so we also have to import table honey from various countries also.

This overall reduction in honey production is due to a variety of factors but certainly includes fewer beekeepers focusing on this aspect of their business. Rather, they are putting most of their efforts into the more profitable, but more difficult pollination business, and production of table honey, thus not competing with less costly imported honey in the barely profitable industrial honey market. Then there are the continued losses each year due to varroa mites, pesticides and colony collapse disorder. As a result of reduced domestic production a couple of things have happened, one of which is that, happily, the price of table grade honey has increased substantially due to reduced supply but continued demand. Interestingly, this has caused some beekeepers to again look at increasing their production of that of honey rather than push their bees through the pollination grist mill again ... because beekeepers can be flexible to some degree, the scene is always changing.

Overall, however, domestic production for both table and industrial honey is slowly declining while demand for both of these products continues to gradually increase, especially for industrial grade. To make up the difference imports – no surprise - are increasing.

But food security is an ongoing issue. Having enough of it continues to be an undercurrent, but making sure it is safe, no matter the source, comes to the top of the pile again and again, and honey is not above the fray.

And here is where honey imports are being scrutinized - for what's coming in, where it is coming from, is it coming in legally, and is it safe - particularly honey from China. Contamination with several antibiotics commonly used in agriculture has been an issue with Chinese honey in the past (and to some degree honey from Argentina, also). This was to the point of actually refusing entry into the U.S. of honey from China because of this problem. Moreover, the U.S. Department of Commerce has determined (with considerable assistance from the U.S. beekeeping industry) that China has purposefully dumped honey on the American market, selling it far below their cost of production, sometimes for as little as $0.19 -$0.20 per pound. By comparison, wholesale honey from India was recently selling for about $1.29 per pound, and bulk honey from the U.S. is selling for about $1.50 per pound.

To compensate, the Dept. of Commerce has placed antidumping tariffs on Chinese honey, bringing the price up to a nearly competitive level (read ... about the same as U.S. honey) when U.S. packers purchase it. Not to be thwarted, Chinese honey sellers then started selling "Packer's Blend" honey, which isn't subject to the tariff because it supposedly was mixed with 51% corn syrup when in reality it was pure honey, and, some figured, it was known by both seller and buyer that this indiscretion was intentional. Wink, wink, nod, nod.

Further, it is strongly suspected that Chinese honey has been transshipped to the U.S. through several countries including Indonesia, Malaysia, Russia, Australia, India and Thailand to avoid paying this tariff. Some of this has been detected and stopped, but it is an ongoing process to keep exporters in line and paying full duty on their exports. More winks, more nods.

Cheap honey has been a bane to U.S. beekeepers for years, and it thoroughly distorts the honey market in the U.S. It is plain to see why it is easy for U.S. beekeepers to abandon bulk (industrial) honey production in their operations and focus on the off-season, smaller, more profitable, easier to produce shelf market products, and of course, pollination. Though more difficult, and certainly harder on their bees, pollination is more profitable, and pollination can't be imported (well, actually it can, but we'll leave that for another time).

The economics of bulk honey production indicate that when it costs you five times as much to produce a product as your competition you don't produce it for long. U.S. honey packers (those who buy bulk honey from beekeepers – both domestic and imported) work on pretty thin margins and preserving the U.S. beekeeping industry isn't at the top of their list ... not when you can get all the honey you want (and can sell) off shore it seems.

Other countries export honey to the U.S., however. A good fraction of our table grade honey comes in from Argentina and Canada and you often see shelf honey that originated in those two countries that has been blended with U.S. honey. Brazil, too, is producing a table-grade honey that is being imported, but these countries, for the most part, are following the rules for exporting safe, legal products. And they sell at competitive, but realistic prices.

Certainly a multitude of other countries contribute to the pool of less expensive honey imported into the U.S. each year because we are one of the largest honey consumers on the planet. It is a competitive and cutthroat global market.

We are, however, on an individual basis not a big player. We consume only a pound and two ounces of honey per capita each year. This is much lower that some European countries where consumption can be as much a five or six pounds per capita per year. However, there are just over 300 million of us, which makes for a lot of honey by year's end.

If you are concerned about the ramifications of Colony Collapse Disorder, do not overlook the effect that it has had on honey production in the U.S. and other countries in the world. Though not the driving force and major cash machine it once was for beekeepers, honey production still maintains a healthy second place in the business of bees. And, consider too, the fraud and deceit that is part of the global honey market.

Who would have thought something so sweet could create such a foul situation?