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Resource centre on India's rural distress
 
 

Impure honey eats into small producers' margins -Hiren Kumar Bose

-VillageSquare.in

Independent and small beekeepers are uniting against adulterated and diluted honey sold in the domestic market by companies fighting a price war

Amravati (Maharashtra): After a long hiatus of eight years, the purple-colored Karvi flower (Strobilanthes callosus) bloomed in the low hills of western Maharashtra, heightening the spirits of people like Ashok Shelar of Warsoi Koli village, neighboring Maharashtra’s favorite hill station, Mahabaleshwar. A proud owner of 80 bee colonies, he is both happy and uncertain about the natural event.

A local self- government employee and a honey collector since his childhood, he is uncertain whether he will able to fetch a premium for the amber-colored honey as the market has lately been plagued by price cutting indulged by the big brands and large-scale adulteration.

“Many branded honeys you pick up off the shelf of a mall wooed by the TV commercials are perhaps not the real honey and like most brands are adulterated either with invert sugar, liquid glucose or corn syrup,” Sudhir Sing Patil of Sat-Maha Honey told VillageSquare.in. Patil sources wild honey from the Sahyadri range including places like Trimbakeshwar, Bhimashankar, Mahabaleshwar and Koyna, and also from 40 farmer-run beekeeping groups — all processed and bottled in the unit located in the temple town of Alandi, 16 km from Pune. “To make a profit in a fight to offer low prices, the honey processing companies are resorting to contamination of honey,” he says.

Dabur has a dominant share of the Rs 6 billion branded-honey market while Patanjali by offering the cheapest honey is trying to edge out the dominant player. Although these brands have certificates from Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI) and Bureau of Indian Standards (BIS) to their credit like others, boutique brands allege that the present-day standards are not conclusive enough to prove their genuineness.

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