Grocery Store Honey versus Local Honey

As local beekeepers, we have known for a while the benefits of local honey as compared to honey you see on most grocery store shelves. We try to educate our customers about the benefits of honey with local pollens, which can help build resistance to airborne pollen allergies. The other obvious difference between the two types of honey is the flavor. Until we started beekeeping, I didn't each much honey. This was because I had only really eaten pasteurized honey, and it didn't seem that great. Even the honey you find at many local farm markets will be pasteurized, as smaller honey processors have picked up the practice of pasteurizing and high pressure filtering their honey so that it will stay liquid on the store shelves rather than granulating in time (as seen in the picture above). These packers often sport a label with a local address, so the consumer really has no clue where their honey came from, but only know where the honey was processed.

Over the past two weeks, we have had several customers point out the article: Tests Show Most Store Honey Isn't Honey, published by Food Safety News, and later picked up by the Associated Press, which details the differences between local, unprocessed honey, and honey that is high pressure filtered, thus removing all the pollen, as well as much of the flavor and nutritional benefits of honey. The article is lengthy, but definitely worth reading. We're not trying to convince you to buy more of our honey... but we do feel it is important to always buy honey directly from a beekeeper that you know and trust.

-Jayne