AQIS has moved to protect the reputation of Australia's honey and honey products by introducing enhanced certification regulations.

The new rules affect export honey products that contain imported ingredients: AQIS now requires a certificate of analysis to confirm that the products are free from residues of banned drugs that have previously been detected in honey products repackaged and exported from Australia, or blended with Australian honey and exported.

Detections of nitrofurans in Australian honey caused disruptions to trade between Australia and Canada in 2003 and 2004, and in 2005 and 2006. AQIS's imported food program found nitrofurans in consignments of honey from China and Bulgaria. More recently, chloramphenicol residues have been found in Australian blended honey and propolis exported to the United Kingdom.

As far as AQIS has been able to determine, all of these cases involved repackaging of imported product or blending of imported honey with Australian honey.

Investigations identified the imported components as the source of the residues.

The certificate of analysis must include chloramphenicol and nitrofuran antibiotics, and must meet the minimum performance criteria listed by the European Commission (Commission Decision 2003/181/CE of 13 March 2003, Off. J. Eur. Commun. L71 (2003) 17).

Photo credit: DWSPL/Linda Lainge