Austria trials DNA testing to uncover honey fraud

At a laboratory in Austria's mountainous Tyrol province, scientists are DNA testing about 100 honey samples a month to learn about their composition and in some cases to determine whether they have been adulterated.

With fake honey flooding markets, and only a few European laboratories running such analysis, the small Austrian company Sinsoma began offering the tests two years ago. Between 2021 and 2022, 46 percent of the honey tested under an EU investigation as it entered the bloc was flagged as potentially adulterated, up from 14 percent in the 2015-17 period. Of the suspicious consignments, 74 percent were of Chinese origin.

While the European Union is the world's top honey producer after China, it is also the second-biggest importer after the United States. Most of the bloc's honey imports come from Ukraine, China and Argentina, according to EU data.