Honey Standard
Honey Standard
Honey Standard
ICS 67.180.20
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Contents Page
Foreword ............................................................................................................................................................ iv
1 Scope ...................................................................................................................................................... 1
2 Normative references ............................................................................................................................ 1
3 Terms and definitions ........................................................................................................................... 2
4 Types of honey ...................................................................................................................................... 2
4.1 By origin ................................................................................................................................................. 2
4.1.1 Blossom honey or nectar honey .......................................................................................................... 2
4.1.2 Honey dew honey .................................................................................................................................. 2
4.1.3 Monofloral honey ................................................................................................................................... 2
4.1.4 Fruit and plant juices honey ................................................................................................................. 2
4.2 By methods of processing ................................................................................................................... 2
4.2.1 Extracted honey..................................................................................................................................... 2
4.2.2 Pressed honey ....................................................................................................................................... 2
4.2.3 Drained honey........................................................................................................................................ 2
4.3 By form of presentation ........................................................................................................................ 3
5 Requirements ......................................................................................................................................... 3
5.1 General requirements ........................................................................................................................... 3
5.2 Specific requirements ........................................................................................................................... 3
6 Food additives and contaminants ....................................................................................................... 4
6.1 Food additives ....................................................................................................................................... 4
6.2 Heavy metal contaminants ................................................................................................................... 4
6.3 Residues of pesticides and veterinary drugs ..................................................................................... 5
7 Hygiene ................................................................................................................................................... 5
8 Packaging ............................................................................................................................................... 5
9 Weights and measures ......................................................................................................................... 5
10 Labelling ................................................................................................................................................. 5
11 Sampling ................................................................................................................................................ 6
Annex A (normative) Gravimetric determination of water-insoluble solids content (Type II
method) .................................................................................................................................................. 7
A.1 Sampling ................................................................................................................................................ 7
A.1.1 Liquid or strained honey....................................................................................................................... 7
A.1.2 Comb honey ........................................................................................................................................... 7
A.2 Procedure ............................................................................................................................................... 7
A.2.1 Preparation of test sample .................................................................................................................. 7
A.2.2 Gravimetric determination .................................................................................................................... 7
A.2.3 Expression of results ............................................................................................................................ 7
Annex B (normative) Determination of fructose-glucose ratio .................................................................... 8
B.1 Principle of the method......................................................................................................................... 8
B.2 Reagents ................................................................................................................................................ 8
B.3 Procedure ............................................................................................................................................... 8
B.4 Calculation and expression of results ................................................................................................ 8
Annex C (normative) Fiehe's test ................................................................................................................... 10
C.1 Reagent ................................................................................................................................................ 10
Resorcinol solution .......................................................................................................................................... 10
C.2 Procedure ............................................................................................................................................. 10
C.3 Expression of results .......................................................................................................................... 10
Bibliography ...................................................................................................................................................... 11
Foreword
Development of the East African Standards has been necessitated by the need for harmonizing requirements
governing quality of products and services in the East African Community. It is envisaged that through
harmonized standardization, trade barriers that are encountered when goods and services are exchanged
within the Community will be removed.
The Community has established an East African Standards Committee (EASC) mandated to develop and
issue East African Standards (EAS). The Committee is composed of representatives of the National
Standards Bodies in Partner States, together with the representatives from the public and private sector
organizations in the community.
East African Standards are developed through Technical Committees that are representative of key
stakeholders including government, academia, consumer groups, private sector and other interested parties.
Draft East African Standards are circulated to stakeholders through the National Standards Bodies in the
Partner States. The comments received are discussed and incorporated before finalization of standards, in
accordance with the Principles and procedures for development of East African Standards.
East African Standards are subject to review, to keep pace with technological advances. Users of the East
African Standards are therefore expected to ensure that they always have the latest versions of the standards
they are implementing.
The committee responsible for this document is EASC/TC 011, Apiary and apiary products.
This second edition cancels and replaces the first edition (EAS 36:2000), which has been technically revised.
Attention is drawn to the possibility that some of the elements of this document may be subject of patent
rights. EAC shall not be held responsible for identifying any or all such patent rights.
1 Scope
This Draft East African Standard specifies the requirements, sampling and test methods for honey produced
by honeybees of genus Apis for human consumption.
2 Normative references
The following documents are referred to in the text in such a way that some or all of their content constitutes
requirements of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references,
the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
AOAC Official method 985.16 determination of Tin in canned foods — Atomic Absorption Spectrophotometric
Method
AOAC Official Method 952.13 for determination of Arsenic in food —Silver diethyldithiocarbamate
AOAC Official Method 983.20 Mercury (Methyl) in Fish and Shellfish Gas Chromatographic Method
AOAC Official method 985.16 for determination of Tin in canned foods — Atomic absorption
spectrophotometric method
AOAC Official method 999.10 for determination of Cadmium, Tin, Copper and Iron in foods
AOAC Official method 999.11 Determination of Lead, Cadmium, Copper, Iron, and Zinc in Foods
EAS 39, Hygiene in the food and drink manufacturing industry — Code of practice
ISO 4831, Microbiology of food and animal feeding stuffs — Horizontal method for the detection and
enumeration of coliforms — Most probable number technique
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
ISO and IEC maintain terminological databases for use in standardization at the following addresses:
honey
the natural sweet substance produced by honey bees of genus Apis from the nectar of plants or from
secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the
bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and
leave in the honey comb to ripen and mature
4 Types of honey
4.1 By origin
Honey, which comes mainly from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant sucking insects on
the living parts of the plants. Its colour varies from very light brown or greenish to dark brown
A type of honey which has a distinctive flavor or other attribute due to its being predominantly from the nectar
of one plant species
Honey made by bees from sweet substances such as juices and sap from fruits and plant phloem
Honey obtained by pressing broodless combs with or without the application of moderate heat
Honey which meets all the compositional and quality criteria of this standard may be presented as follows:
b) Comb honey, which is honey, stored by bees in the cells of freshly built broodless combs and which is
sold in sealed whole combs or sections of such combs;
c) Chunk honey, which is, honey containing one or more pieces of comb honey;
d) Crystalled or granulated honey which is honey that has undergone a natural process of solidification
as a result of glucose crystallization; and
e) Creamed (or creamy or set) honey is honey which has a fine crystalline structure and which may have
undergone a physical process to give it that structure and to make it easy to spread.
5 Requirements
Honey shall;
a) not have added food ingredient, including food additives, nor shall any other additions be made other
than honey;
b) not have any objectionable matter, flavour, aroma, or taint absorbed from foreign matter during its
processing and storage;
d) not have pollen or constituent particular to honey removed except where this is unavoidable in the
removal of foreign inorganic or organic matter;
e) not be heated to such an extent that its essential composition and /or its quality is impaired;
g) have the colour varying from near colourless to dark brown (amber) depending on the botanical
source.
i) have the flavour and aroma derived from plant origin; and
j) be free from visible mould and as far as practicable, be free from inorganic or organic matter foreign
to its composition, such as insects, insect debris, brood or grains of sand, or soil, when the honey is
offered for sale or is used in any product for human consumption.
Honey shall comply with the specific requirements given in Table 1 when tested in accordance with test
methods specified therein.
Honey shall not contain any added substances either in the form of additions or additives.
Honey shall be free from heavy metals in amounts which may represent a hazard to human health. The
products covered by this Standard shall comply with those maximum levels for heavy metals established by
the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
In particular, the levels of heavy metallic contaminants in honey shall not exceed limits given in Table 1, when
tested in accordance with the test method prescribed therein.
The product shall comply with pesticides and veterinary drugs maximum residue limits for honey established
by the Codex Alimentarius Commission.
7 Hygiene
Honey shall be processed and handled in hygienic manner in accordance with the EAS 39 and shall comply
with the microbiological limits stipulated in Table 3 when tested in accordance with test methods specified
therein.
8 Packaging
Honey shall be packaged in a food grade material that protects the integrity and safety of the product.
The volume and fill of the container shall comply with weights and measures regulations in the respective
partner state.
10 Labelling
In addition to the labelling requirements given in EAS 38, the package shall be legibly and indelibly marked
with the following information:
d) country of origin;
e) date of packaging;
f) best before;
i) batch/lot number.
A.1 Sampling
If sample is free from granulation, mix thoroughly by stirring or shaking; if granulated, place closed container in
water-bath without submerging, and heat 30 min. at 60 °C; then if necessary, heat at 65 °C until liquefied.
Occasional shaking is essential. Mix thoroughly and cool rapidly as soon as sample liquefies. Do not heat
honey intended for hydroxymethylfurfural or diastatic determination. If foreign matter, such as wax, sticks,
bee’s particles or comb, etc., is present, heat sample at 40 °C in water-bath and strain through cheesecloth in
hot-water-funnel before sampling.
Cut across top of comb, if sealed, and separate completely from comb by straining through a sieve the
meshes of which are made by so weaving wire as to form square opening of 0.500 mm by 0.500 mm when
portions of comb or wax pass through sieve, heat sample as in 7.1.3.1 and strain through cheesecloth. If
honey is granulated in comb, heat until wax is liquefied; stir, cool and remove wax.
A.2 Procedure
Honey (20 g) is weighted to the nearest centigram (10 mg) and dissolved in a suitable quantity of distilled
water at 80 °C and mixed well.
The test sample is filtered through a previously dried and weighed fine sintered glass crucible (pore size
15.40) and washed thoroughly with hot water (80 °C) until free from sugars (Mohr test). The crucible is dried
for one hour at 135 °C, cooled and weighed to 0.1 mg.
The glucose portion of the invert sugar content of honey is determined by reacting it with iodine. The fructose
content is calculated by subtraction.
B.2 Reagents
B.3 Procedure
Pipette 50 ml of honey solution in a 250 ml stoppered flask. Add iodine solution and 25 ml of sodium
hydroxide solution. Stopper the flask and keep in dark for 20 min. Acidify with 5 ml of sulphuric acid and titrate
quickly the excess of iodine against standard thiosulphate solution. Conduct a blank using 50 ml of water
instead of honey solution.
(B−S)×0.004502×100
w=
a
where
B is the volume of sodium thiosulphate solution required for the blank (ml).
S is the volume of sodium thiosulphate solution required for the sample (ml), and
B.4.2 Approximate fructose, per cent by mass (g fructose per 100 g honey):
B.4.3 Actual glucose content (g per 100 g honey), per cent (y) = w - 0.012 x, and
Fiehe's test
C.1 Reagent
Resorcinol solution
Dissolve 1 g of resublimed resorcinol in 100 ml of hydrochloric acid (sp. gr. 1.18 to 1.19).
C.2 Procedure
Dissolve 2 g of honey in 10 ml of water and extract with 30 ml ether. A continuous extractor is preferable.
Remove ether in a separating funnel and concentrate the layer at 5 ml. Add 2 ml of freshly prepared resorcinol
solution, shake and note the colour.
A cherry red colour appearing in a minute indicates the presence of commercial invert sugar.