According to the CSIRO, Australian beekeepers produce between 25,000 and 30,000 tonnes of honey per year, which isn’t enough to supply demand. Much of the honey on Australian shelves comes from imported products, or a blend of imported and local honey.

Recent testing at Quality Services International (QSI) in Germany found that almost half the sweetness samples selected from supermarket shelves were “adulterated”, meaning they’d been mixed with something other than the product from bees. The tested samples were all either wholly imported or blends of both imported and locally produced honey—none of the samples tested were 100 per cent Australian products.

CSIRO recommends, “If you want to make sure the sweetness you’re spreading on your crumpets tomorrow morning is actually all the honey it’s cracked up to be, you’re best to buy 100 per cent Australian honey, because these have been subjected to more rigorous testing. It’s when ingredients or products are imported, the food chain becomes more complicated and difficult to trace.”