Vegan honey could hurt pollinated crops: Australian Honey Bee Council

A new plant-based honey product developed in the US could have unintended consequences, the Australian Honey Bee Council has warned.

The chair of the Australian Honeybee Industry Council has dismissed a new plant-based honey product as a poor and unnecessary substitute for the real thing.

California-based company MeliBio announced this month it had manufactured a vegan honey product without bees.

MeliBio chief executive Darko Mandich said the product was “founded with the mission to make food in a way to save our planet Earth by ending our use of bees in honey production, and thereby helping to restore bee biodiversity among native and wild bees worldwide”.

“Scientific advancements have created a very exciting position where humans can finally make one of their favourite foods without the use of animals,” he said.

Australian Honey Bee Council chairman Trevor Whitehead said the product wouldn’t take off in Australia.

Mr Whitehead said it would be illegal for the product to be marketed as honey in Australia, because it did not fit the definition of honey under the Australian Food Standards Australia New Zealand Act. And making plant-based honey could have a negative effect on industries that require pollination like almonds, watermelons and apples, because beekeepers working in pollination need to produce honey to remain viable, he said.

“ (MeliBio) are claiming that they’re trying to increase the number of pollinators, but really they are going to decrease it because any natural pollinators don’t live where were these commercial crops are grown,” he said.