Who certies Organic Honey?
United States honey; the Federal Government does not inspect and certify for organic honey. In the US there are certifying agencies that will certify honey as organic. They seem to use the NOSB recommendations. But as I mentioned before the USDA has never accepted the recommendations.
Currently, to be certified organic, honey must meet the general USDA organic standards. But there aren’t yet requirements specific to honey. USDA does have recommended guidelines, but an actual organic standard for honey has been in the works since 2001.
Buying Organic Honey? Here’s What You Should Know
In order to produce organic honey, bees need access to swaths of land that haven’t been treated with pesticides and that is increasingly hard to find.
Whats The Deal With Organic Honey?
As of 2021, honey cannot be certified organic by the USDA. Any honey Certified Organic honey sold in the United States is imported from other countries and certified organic by that country. The imported organic honey is not certified Organic by the United States. The USDA recognizes other countries organic certification, so if it’s good enough for the other countries government, it’s good enough for the US. Hopefully you can see the potential problem with this. Especially because most of the organic honey comes from Brazil. And Brazil has had a lot of issues with bribery and fraud in their government.
A US bee keeper or company can have non-certified organic, pure honey that is raised organically. But it is nearly impossible to produce organic honey that can qualify for aorganic label from the USDA.
Also, US beekeepers are currently unable to make any organic claims for their own honey. Bee keepers are not allowed to make any organic claims unless the USDA said they can. Is the government going to drop the hammer on the guy at the farmers market saying they have organic raw honey? Probably not, but those are the rules.
Honey Board Definition
The National Honey Board defines honey as the natural sweet substance created by honey bees from the nectar of flowers and secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant-sucking insects on growing plants, which the bees gather, transform by combining with specific substances of their own that produce chemical properties that cause variations in the final product.
To be sure that the consumer buys a good and healthy honey, we recommend consumers to buy their honey exclusively from local beekeepers, but also attach great importance to the fact that the honey is neither filtered nor pasteurized and no additives have been added.
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