Vault set up to keep NZ honey safe

A Dunedin company's vault of collected honey samples is set to protect against potential honey-laundering.

Oritain is the only New Zealand company that traces the origin of honey from the hive to the supermarket shelf.

Since November, the Dunedin company's operations manager, Linda Croudis, has taken 64 samples from hives across New Zealand to build a "honey vault" in Dunedin.

Each sample collected had a unique floral signature, she said.

"Honey has a unique fingerprint. Honey is a product of its environment."

A "fingerprint" could be compared with honey from the same apiary further down the supply chain, she said.

The service provided assurance the honey inside the jar was true to label, she said.

"I can pick this honey up out of a hive, a 44-gallon drum, or from a shop in the European Union. I bring all the honey back and confirm it is the same honey. If it was adulterated, mixed with another honey, or something was added to it, then it wouldn't match the data we collected in the beginning. You can't tamper with scientific results."

The vault would stop "honey-launderers" diluting exported New Zealand honey with an inferior product, she said.

"How do you know that honey... is not being cut, or thinned, with corn syrup or cheaper honey?"

The vault maintained the integrity of the New Zealand honey brand, she said.

Only New Zealand honey was sold here, but the Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry may soon allow Australian honey imports, which would pose a "great risk" to the New Zealand honey industry, Mrs Croudis said.

The new ruling would only allow Australian honey into New Zealand but labels could not always be trusted.

"Labels are a gift for counterfeiting."

In 2001, a Chinese honey containing the toxic antibiotic chloramphenicol was imported into Australia, repackaged as Australian-made and sold to the United States, Ms Croudis said.

"What this did for the Australian honey brand was irretrievable. They never regained their place in the market."

A food scare like this year's E.coli outbreak in Germany - initially blamed on Spanish cucumbers - could potentially be good for a business like Oritain, as food companies needed to exonerate themselves, but she did not want the import law lifted.

"There are a few issues about opening that border, about our environment, the disease. You can't wind the clock back: the implications could be a disaster for the New Zealand market."

In 2008, the Government called for an independent review on the risks associated with importing Australian honey.

Ministry policy analyst Paul Bolger said the risks identified in the review were deemed minimal, but the final hurdle stopping free trade was the risks associated with Israeli acute paralysis virus.

A search for the virus in New Zealand was still under way, he said.

If the virus was here, it was not a risk and free trade of Australian honey would start. If it was not found in New Zealand, then the ministry would seek independent advice on whether the virus was heat-treatable, he said.

 

- Shawn McAvinue