Last month, FDA issued a new Draft Guidance, requiring the labels of honey products to declare sweeteners in the statement of identity. This sounds ridiculous. Consumers have accepted that honey marketers routinely mix honey and sweeteners – for example, sugar or corn syrup – and we still call the final product “honey”. Under FDA’s new guidance, however, the correct statement of identity will be “Blend of honey and sugar” if the final product has more honey than sugar, and “Blend of sugar and honey” if otherwise. And FDA is not making new laws, just reinforcing existing laws!
After the first ridiculous look, the guidance does fit under FDA’s regulatory authority. FDA requires that a food declare its common or usual name and specifies that honey is food for bees which does not include any added sweetener. Therefore, failing to declare added sugar does currently make the food misbranded. Additionally, adding a sweetener reduces the value of the final product, and renders it adulterated.
FDA’s underlying motive in publishing the Draft Guidance is to alleviate the pressure from the American Beekeeping Federation and other honey-related associations, who submitted a citizen petition to FDA requesting a U.S. standard of identity for honey in 2006. Although FDA is merely analyzing under its current regulatory regime, the clear language of the Draft Guidance does suggest that FDA now has a new specific and easy enforcement tool – honey identity labeling.
What does the Guidance mean for enforcement? The Draft Guidance applies to both imported and domestic honey products. However, we anticipate that FDA will use its enforcement powers more in the imported honey market. FDA has been utilizing Import Alert 36-01 to address the adulteration of imported honey. FDA can add the wording from this Draft Guidance in screening all the future entries. For domestic honey products, it is harder for FDA to enforce this guidance – unless FDA goes into grocery store and checks the labels one by one!
