Honey Packers Fail to Report Tainted Imports

Companies often simply send honey back to importer

By Drew Nelles, Newser Staff

Posted Jan 29, 2009 2:25 PM CST

(Newser) – US honey packers often don’t tell authorities about imports contaminated with banned antibiotics or other chemicals, and instead simply send the products back, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reports after a lengthy investigation. Importers can then get the tainted honey into the American market through another packer, as two Chicago businessmen did before being arrested last year. “To find it and not report it is criminal,” one beekeeper says.

One of the country’s biggest honey packers insists it has no obligation to report contamination to the Food and Drug Administration, since the tainted product—frequently from China—is the importer’s property. But the FDA disagrees. “It is in the interest of the honey industry to assure that adulterated honey doesn’t get into the marketplace,” an official says, especially since some people are hypersensitive to the illegal antibiotics.

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (3)]

Honey drips from a bee as the honeycomb is lifted out of the beehive. Two-thirds of the honey consumed in the US is foreign, of which half is from China. (AP Photo)

An American beekeeper checks on the Italian honey bees he cares for. Major honey packers frequently discover tons of tainted imports without warning the FDA. (AP Photo)

A Sue Bee honey bottle from the 1960s. Sue Bee says it does not warn regulators when it discovers tainted imports, and instead sends the product back. (Photo: SKAR Advertising)

Honeybees work in a beehive. (AP Photo)

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If we buy Chinese honey, as we do far too often, we know it may contain chloramphenicol or some other antibiotic that is illegal in any food product. - beekeeper Mark Brady

We deal with a core group of suppliers that have long, established ties in the import business, and we're assuming that when we reject a load of honey, they'll return it to the people they purchased it from. - Bill Allibone, Sue Bee Honey Association

Allowing even the slightest chance that these antibiotics and other drugs can end up in honey on our store shelves is criminal. You can't begin to imagine the pain and harm that can come to us sensitive to those drugs. - John Fratti

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Honey Packers Fail to Report Tainted Imports