Label analysis of Serbian honey: what does (not) the label tell us?

Abstract

In order to differentiate between many honey types on Serbian market, consumers read labels, which represent an important aspect of packaging “catching” the consumer’s eyes as well as carrying all the necessary information about the product, producer and seller. As consumers are more and more aware of health problems and nutrition they pay attention to the information written on the labels on different products. The aim of this study was to inspect labels on honey packages collected in an official monitoring during October 2017. In total 60 honey samples were collected and examined. Of all examined honey samples, 46 (76.67%) labels did not fulfill prescribed conditions according to Legislative on quality of honey and other bee products and Declaration, labeling and marketing of food (“Official Gazette RS”, No. 101/2015; “Offi cial Gazette RS” No. 85/13 and No. 101/13), while only 14 (23.33%) did. This results lead to indispensible need to inform and educate beekeepers about the actual laws and regulations in order to make labels that contain all the information required, which might possibly also raise the consumption of honey to higher level.