Geochemical Authentication of New Zealand Honey

Abstract

Fraudulent practices in relation to production and distribution of foodstuffs have been prevalent throughout history. The intentional or accidental tampering of a food supply for profit is of great concern to many including regulatory bodies, producers and consumers. Extreme cases of food fraud have caused significant detriment to the health and wellbeing of sectors of the general public. As such, interest in procedures to combat the varying forms of food fraud has peaked over the last decade. Honey is a foodstuff that has wide spread use in the food industry, on its own or as a natural sweetening ingredient in many processed food products. This makes honey a high value commodity and as such it is particularly vulnerable to fraudulent practices. The properties of honey vary greatly dependent upon its origins, with some honeys exhibiting unique properties that make them more desirable than others, such as the antibacterial properties of New Zealand Manuka honey. These unique properties result in higher prices in global markets for these honeys. Higher prices also results in these honeys being greater targets for fraud and counterfeiting. This thesis is concerned with the analysis of geochemical parameters in New Zealand honeys and the utilisation of these geochemical parameters to the application of authentication for New Zealand export honeys, including Manuka honey. The extension and development of these methods for the determination of the provenance of honeys is also investigated along with the application of the measured geochemical parameters as indicators of honey adulteration. The applied methods show promise for the authentication of New Zealand export honeys and may provide a useful tool for the protection of a valuable New Zealand economic commodity. The application of these methods for provenancing of honey is feasible but this would require large comprehensive datasets that are representative of the whole honey population of concern. The development of these datasets would be labour intensive and expensive. The geochemical parameters measured in the course of this study were observed to differ between Manuka honey and a common adulterating sugar. There is a basis to utilise these differences in composition as an indicator of Manuka honey adulteration.