16.06.2014

GMO pollen in honey not required to be declared

Following directive 2014/63/EU of 15 May 2014 amending honey directive 2001/110/EC, pollen is not defined as an ingredient, but as a natural constituent of honey. This amendment overturns a decision of the European Court of Justice of 2011 which had defined pollen as an ingredient.

According to this, honey that contained pollen from GMO, which made it a “food produced from a GMO", was subject to authorization. If the share of a GMO authorized as food in the ingredient pollen was more than 0.9 per cent, the honey had to be marked accordingly.

With the amendment to the honey directive that has now come into force, the threshold value of 0.9 per cent no longer refers to the share in the pollen, but to the honey as a whole. However, since honey usually contains only 0.1 to 0.5 per cent pollen, declaration is no longer required, provided it is from a GMO authorized as food.

The member states are admonished to release the required legal and administrative regulations and to apply these as of 24 June 2015.

ifp offers testing for GMO in honey as a service. Analysis comprises comprehensive molecular biological screening as well as identification and quantification.