Trust your honey
Australian honey is some of the purest in the world
Australian honey is one of the few honeys still collected from native bushland and forests and is considered some of the purest in the world. Additionally, due to our strict biosecurity measures, it is also free from most honeybee diseases negating the use of husbandry chemicals and antibiotics.
The value of the industry is estimated at $125 million for honey, beeswax, pollen, royal jelly, venom and honey bee exports, with a further $14 billion farm gate value generated by 65% of Australia’s agriculture wholly or partly reliant on honey bee pollination.
Honey is claimed to be the third most adulterated food product, through the addition of syrups, and so it is important for producers, exporters and consumers, to have confidence in the quality of Australian honey bee products.
Australia is one of the last places on Earth where we don’t have diseases like varroa, so keeping diseases out is considered critical for the industry.
The landscape
In 2018 there was a scare for the Australian honey industry when companies were accused of adulterating honey. It was concluded that existing honey testing methods, and their databases, lacked the rigour to support this accusation. So whilst no finding was made, it left the industry exposed and customers doubtful.
Professor Sharon Purchase leads the Chain of Custody team
At this time, researchers led by CEO Dr Liz Barbour within the federally funded Cooperative Research Centre for Honey Bee Products (CRCHBP) at The University of Western Australia (UWA) were reviewing industry quality assurance and traceability methods. Head of Marketing Department, Professor Sharon Purchase, from the UWA Business School leads Research Program 4, Chain of Custody, as well as a several projects within the Program. She and her team were introduced to B-QUAL Australia and found that large beekeepers were using a paper-based system for their audits.
B-QUAL Australia is a company established by the national industry body, Australian Honey Bee Industry Council (AHBIC) that sets the Australian beekeeping and packer standards. This includes traceability of products, management practices, HACCP and biosecurity. B-QUAL Australia certifies beekeepers and packer members who meet these industry standards.
Prior to the project starting, B-QUAL members were required to keep paper-based data on all extractions, hive locations, equipment and invoicing, with B-QUAL auditing every two years, and providing certification. The paper-based system did not allow for easy retrieval of data or the traceability of honey through the supply chain.
Understanding how honey flows through the supply chain and getting access to that data became very important for companies within the industry for continuous improvement. Thorough processes and rigorous data were also needed to improve traceability and for industry policy making.
With funding from the CRCHBP, Professor Purchase and her team started research project 22, Chain of Custody for Honey Bee Products, with the aim of automating the existing system, as well as including a self-biosecurity audit and extending honey quality assurance processes Australia-wide.
B-QUALity assured
The team applied business process management techniques to develop a new platform-based B-QUAL system which was delivered in 2021 to B-QUAL members. The auditable, digitised traceability web APP was based on BQUAL’s paper-based system and field tested among beekeepers and producers in June 2021. It is easy to use and improves on the old system with further add-ins around better industry benchmarking and enhanced biosecurity access.
The B-QUAL APP is easy to use and available to Australian beekeepers
An immediate add-in to the database was from CRCHBP Program 1 led by UWA’s A/Prof Bryan Boruff’s, which was the Australian melliferous (honeybee) flora database. Correct scientific identification of the flora was required for the traceability of honeybee products from field to shelf.
The team also modified the system to offer smaller beekeepers with a desk-auditing system, B-Trace, which focusses on food health standards (HACCP) and honeybee biosecurity check system critical for maintaining Australia’s bee health.
Impact on stakeholders
The new B-Trace desk-audit system was rolled out more broadly in February 2022 and broadens the reach of beekeepers adhering to best practice policies and to maintain the quality and reputation of Australian honeybee products.
Beekeepers and packers
For members, the system provides a quicker, more efficient way of gathering, processing, tracing and analysing data for audit and for business and productivity improvements. Beekeepers can now access their own data for analysis, such as honey yield across the years and seasons. Large and small operators can now get a good understanding of how their practices and honeybee product production comes together over each year.
For B-Trace members, the APP offers a cost-effective way of gaining certification and adhering to biosecurity and food standard codes.
Packers can now improve their own quality assurance processes and product traceability by encouraging their suppliers to use either the B-QUAL or B-Trace system.
Good beekeepers already have a gut feel. Now they’ll have some data to support that.
Industry and government agencies
This digitised B-QUAL and B-Trace system is capturing the attention of state and national agriculture departments, including the WA Department of Primary Industries and Regional Development (DPIRD) as well as larger honey companies looking to improve quality assurance processes in their supply chain.
Both the B-QUAL and B-Trace automatically report any biosecurity incidents to State Government Biosecurity Departments, in line with the 2015 Biosecurity Act.
Previously, honey yield was benchmarked via the hive, but a hive varies from state to state and within a state. The new system allows yield to be benchmarked according to the frames within a hive, using a standard frame as the unit. Where bigger frames are used, the system automatically re-calculates yield.
If ever required for legal or policy argument, beekeepers could easily supply this information to show trends of honey yields within states and within biogeographical regions.
Over time, the government will gain an understanding of the yield of our iconic, really high-end honeys and how much that is worth to Australia.
B-QUAL auditors
Auditors can now process paperwork before they leave their office, making the on-site auditing a more cost effective and timely process. The B-Trace audit is designed to be desktop.
Consumers
Data on changes and comparisons in yield and quality of honey can be used to understand the value of the high-end native bush and forest honeys and help promote Australian honey to the local and export market. Consumers can be assured that the honey has been through a rigorous process of traceability and authentication and is of the highest quality.
The B-QUAL APP is easy to use and available to Australian beekeepers
This system is really important to consumers because you need to trust your honey. You need to know that your honey is the best in the world.
Characterising Australian honey
In collaboration with B-QUAL Australia and the CRCHBP, with additional support from a Traceability Grant from Department of Agriculture, Water and Environment, the next step of honey assurance is being implemented.
Consumers can have confidence in Australian honey
This Project was to establish the process and characterisation of the Australian Honey Library, develop a batch numbering system to track and trace, and inform the industry of anti-counterfeiting packaging strategies.
The outcome is to provide a guarantee that honey is Australian and meets Australian and international standards.
The Australian Honey Library
An App was developed by UWA A/Prof Bryan Boruff’s team that captured the metadata of the honeys the beekeepers were providing to the Australian Honey Library.
The first testing to be undertaken of these samples are the internationally accepted CODEX tests. Australian laboratories involved in the Australian honey library undertook an international ring-test for assurance that Australian laboratories were in line with international standards. In addition a new analytical system developed by CRCHBP Program 2, Project 13 led by UWA A/Prof Cornelia Locher, High Performance Thin Layer Chromatography (HPTLC) was also to be included, and ring-tested with two other laboratories. The HPTLC system offers a nectar-source ‘signature’ to recognise individual iconic honeys.
Australian Honey Library database
To capture the data from these tests, the Traceability Grant supported the design of a database and the CRCHBP funded its building and implementation as an add-on to the B-QUAL system. This ensures that each honey sample the beekeepers or packers test will be linked to the traceability of the sample from the hive.
Overtime, the Australian Honey Library and its supporting database will be able to confirm an Australian honey sample if ever questioned, with the ability for recall and information to resolve an adulteration accusation.
Australian batch number
The next challenge Professor Purchases team addressed was linking the honey assurance testing to the honey in a jar purchased by a customer.
The team conducted a small survey in 2021 and found that more than 40% of the honey in jars available does not meet labelling requirements under Australian standards. Particularly important is the batch number and how this is expressed as this links to food safety and traceability of the product.
Another threat the honey industry has is the interference with the packaging and labelling. Australian product packaging has been copied to promote and sell inferior product. Funded by the CRCHBP, Professor Purchase tested the use of RFID and QR codes, and their link to additional marketing messages. In the experimental design the use of honey jars being exported from Australia. The link to a web site provides information on what aspects of honey purchasers are interested in.
Packers will be able to go as far as stating the provenance and vintage of their fine food product.
Our honey is some of the best honey in the world. This system will help us get the best price for the best quality honey there is.
Aboriginal English: It’s all in the yarning