Honey adulteration: CSE rebuts Chinese firm’s claim

The New Delhi-based NGO, Centre for Science and Surroundings (CSE), on Tuesday rebutted Chinese organization Wuhu Deli Foods’ statement criticising CSE’s current investigation of adulteration in honey and the part performed by Chinese companies in providing sugar syrup in India.

Last week, CSE experienced uncovered how most branded honey sold in Indian marketplaces was spiked with sugar syrup imported primarily from China as it can bypass adulteration checks mandated by the Indian regulator, the Foodstuff Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI).

CSE ‘sting’: Most honey manufacturers ‘adulterated with sugar syrup’

Nevertheless, in a general public statement issued on Monday, the organization based in Anhui province in China denied that it realized that the reported syrups solicited by CSE investigators have been to bypass the checks to prove the authenticity of honey sold in India. The statement also pointed out that the corporation considered the transaction experienced only to do with syrup, and nothing at all to do with honey.

Experience in syrups

Wuhu Deli was just one of the companies contacted by investigators from CSE posing as a fictitious honey trading organization to uncover out if Chinese sugar and rice syrup could be introduced into India and blended with Indian honey, and whether this syrup-spiked honey would go Indian screening requirements.

Honey adulteration: ‘Centre must ban import of large fructose syrup’

A statement issued by CSE on Tuesday reported its investigators wrote to Wuhu Deli searching for syrups that could bypass the honey requirements as mandated by FSSAI.

These screening parameters that CSE scientists pointed out in the e mail to Wuhu Deli are to specially test the authenticity of honey in India — and not meant for that of sugar syrups or rice syrups (which Wuhu Deli alleges it assumed it was working in).

In actuality, Wuhu Deli’s reaction to CSE’s ask for reported — in very clear conditions — that its large fructose syrup could go all these checks. Not just that, it also quoted rates for ten container hundreds (200 tonnes) of this syrup that could bypass the earlier mentioned screening parameters for honey authenticity in India, the NGO argued.

It is common expertise that Chinese companies have knowledge in syrups which, when adulterated in honey, can go the Indian screening parameters. There are a lot of sellers on on the web marketplaces like Alibaba who market this. Wuhu Deli is just one this sort of advertiser and has been rated by Alibaba as a ‘gold supplier’.

“It is a actuality that Wuhu Deli despatched us a cargo of samples that contained syrup with the intention of helping us to bypass the honey screening protocols in India. It is regrettable that simply because CSE is not a foods importer, it did not have requisite clearances to import foods products and solutions and experienced to cancel the cargo from Wuhu Deli. If we regulate to get possession of this cargo, we will be happy to get its contents analyzed.”