Honey producers may get tougher food labeling regulations to protect their product on store shelves.
The Canadian Food Inspection Agency wants to design regulations that wouldn’t allow food products to use the word “honey” in their names unless they actually use honey.
Presently it is illegal to call something “honey” unless it is 100 percent natural honey. But regulations allow products to include the word “honey” in a longer name, such as “honey-mustard,” even if there is no real honey in the product.
“I feel very strongly that our regulations aren’t tough enough,” said John McCool of the Canadian Food Inspection Agency, which oversees product labeling in Canada.
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Closing the loophole that allows non-honey products to use the word “honey” would help Canadian beekeepers, said Saskatchewan provincial apiculturalist John Gruszka.
About 10 years ago “honey mustard” dips started popping up in many fast food restaurants.
“Some of these honey mustard products didn’t have a stitch of honey in them,” he said.
If a product wants to use the word “honey,” it should contain it, Gruszka said.
McCool said he and the Honey Industry Advisory Committee are trying to develop labeling regulations to protect the name of honey.
