Three men were arrested in Jacksonville,
Florida on smuggling charges this week.
Chin Chou from Taiwan, Qiao Chu from China and Wei-Tang Lo from
California successfully imported over 900 containers of Chinese Honey over the
past two years which they fraudulently labeled rice fructose. Once the honey passed customs as rice
fructose it was shipped to warehouses where it was relabeled amber honey and
sold to U.S. honey companies. U.S.
Customs did seize 123 containers (over 5,000,000 lbs/ 2.27 million kgs.) of falsely labeled Chinese honey at 11
different ports of entry. The smugglers
saved millions on anti-dumping duty ($2.63 per kilo) which was levied against
Chinese honey in 2001 to counter heavily subsidized Chinese honey. American beekeepers unable to compete were
being forced out of business. Chinese
honey is ultra filtered to remove pollen which is the only way to trace the
origin. Honey from China can contain banned antibiotics (health
hazard) and heavy metals. Sweeteners are
added to the contaminated honey to mask the acrid taste and smell ( http://strathconabeekeepers.blogspot.com/2011/11/chinese-laundered-honey.html).
In 2010 Canada exported $70 million of honey
and imported $15 million of honey mostly from the U.S., Australia and New Zealand. I wonder if any of that honey came to this
continent as rice fructose.