?דבש מזויף תוצרת סין מציף את אירופה - ומה המצב בישראל

Fake honey from China is flooding European grocery stores. Despite the EU Commission tightening rules to inform customers, the trend isn't slowing down. Some of Europe's beekeepers say their business are at risk due to cheap rice-based honey. NTD's France correspondent David Vives has the story. It's hard to tell the difference with the naked eye, but some honeys aren't made from flowers. Rather, they come from rice, wet corn and other sweet products. Many European customers might have been fooled by the honey coming from China, which is Europe's largest supplier at the moment. The latest figures show a sharp increase of importations from this country since 2020. In China, a new industry is emerging, one that produces artificial honey using rice and corn syrups that are very, very well fabricated. And these artificial honeys, which have not been made by bees, compete with French and European honeys and arrive on the market at such low prices that they are well below the production costs of our honeys. One honeypot from China can be produced for as little as $1 or $2, compared to $5 for a French pot. Henry says that although China has been a great producer of honey in the past, recent methods are totally profit-oriented without respect for customers. These products rarely get spotted as fake honey when they reach grocery shelves. The worst thing is that these products go beyond a routine analysis, and we can't recognize them if we don't carry out more in-depth analyses to detect them. In response to this situation, the EU Commission spearheaded a comprehensive control operation, collaborating with 16 European countries. Their findings revealed not only the use of unauthorized additives, but also falsified traceability information, misleading consumers. Henry says only stricter systematic controls and a total ban on these honeys could really address the problem. We are calling for much stricter controls. We are also calling for analysis methods to be cross-referenced to identify these false honeys and for them to be banned. Europe imported around $390 million of honey in 2023. David Vives, NTD News, Paris.