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Australian honey, produced from domesticated European honey bees mostly foraging in native vegetation, is unique. Under the microscope, most Australian honey samples can be distinguished from honey produced in other countries.
That's the conclusion of our study, the first systematic examination of pollen contained within Australian honey.
We collaborated with two major honey retailers to survey the pollen content of a large number of unprocessed honey samples. We found that a unique mix of native flora gives Australian honey a distinctive pollen signature.
As fears grow about "counterfeit" or adulterated food, especially high-value foods like olive oil, coffee, saffron and honey, there's enormous benefit in preserving Australia's international reputation for high-quality products.
(Score: 2) by AthanasiusKircher on Monday August 13 2018, @01:00PM
One of the big reasons adulterating honey is feasible is because honey (despite being "natural" and supposedly so much better) actually resembles blends of much cheaper sugars with only a few trace elements. In fact, the vast majority of honey's sugar composition is often quite close to high fructose corn syrup standard blends (though don't tell the "natural foods" brigade this).
As for this pollen method, it's the most common and well-known approach, but it doesn't come close to covering all cases. I summarized a lot of relevant problems in my answer to a question about this stuff here [stackexchange.com]. Today you often really have to use a mass spectrometer if you want to detect honey adulteration... And even that doesn't work for determined adulterators. (Can they ever really be stopped??)