Ingredients
What is a honey blend?
What is a honey blend?
A honey blend is a product in which honey is combined with other ingredients — commonly nuts, spices or roots. Under the international Codex standard, honey sold as honey may have nothing added to it but honey, so a product with other ingredients in it is a different food and should be named as one.
What does Codex actually say?
The Codex Standard for Honey is unusually blunt. Honey sold as such shall not have added to it any food ingredient, including food additives, nor shall any other additions be made other than honey. Products conforming to the standard are designated "honey", and the only blend the standard recognises is one honey mixed with another — honeydew honey with blossom honey.
How does that sit with Malaysian rules?
Malaysia's own definition is similar in spirit. The Food Regulations 1985 define honey as the sugary product obtained from the comb of the honey bee and set compositional limits for it. The regulation contains no clause permitting additions. What Malaysia does not have is a separate defined category for a honey blend.
What should an honest blend label tell you?
Four things worth checking
- Every ingredient named. Not "herbs and spices", not "exclusive blend" — the actual names, so you can look each one up.
- Honey identified as a component. A blend is honest when it presents itself as a mixture rather than as a jar of honey with a decorative extra.
- No restricted words. A Malaysian food label may not carry "compounded", "medicated", "tonic" or "health", or words of the same significance.
- No outcome claims. No food label in Malaysia may claim a food is suitable for preventing, alleviating, treating or curing a condition.
Why does a blend behave differently in the jar?
Because it is no longer a single substance. Solid pieces separate, settle or float depending on their density against the honey. Colour is darker than a light single-source honey because the added ingredients contribute their own. None of this is a fault, and none of it says anything about the honey underneath.
Single-source honey and a mixed product, side by side
Codex designation
- Honey
- "Honey"
- A blend with other ingredients
- Outside the standard — needs its own name
What may be added
- Honey
- Nothing but honey
- A blend with other ingredients
- Whatever the label names
| Honey | A blend with other ingredients | |
|---|---|---|
| Codex designation | "Honey" | Outside the standard — needs its own name |
| What may be added | Nothing but honey | Whatever the label names |
Separation in particular gets mistaken for spoilage. Our article on honey with nuts in Malaysia covers what settles and why, and what raw honey actually means covers the other word most often misused on these jars.
Is a blend worse than plain honey?
SUBUR is a blend and says so: raw honeycomb with nine other named ingredients — black seed, saffron, ginseng, ginger, cinnamon, star anise, nutmeg, walnut and almond — ten in total, all on the label, with no artificial colour or flavour. The benefits page lists each one, and the guide to buying honey in Malaysia covers the wider market.
Ten names, all on the label
See every ingredient in the blend and where it comes from, with nothing hidden behind a proprietary phrase.
See the full ingredient listFrequently asked questions
Can a product with nuts and spices in it be called honey?
Not under the Codex Standard for Honey, which states that honey sold as such shall not have added to it any food ingredient and that no additions other than honey may be made. A product containing nuts or spices falls outside that definition and needs a name of its own.
Does Codex recognise any kind of honey blend?
Only honey blended with honey. The standard describes a blend of honeydew honey with blossom honey, and that is the extent of it. There is no Codex category for honey mixed with nuts, spices, herbs or any other non-honey ingredient.
Does Malaysia have a legal definition of a honey blend?
No. The Food Regulations 1985 define honey itself and set compositional limits for it, but there is no separate defined category for a blended honey product. That absence is why the ingredient list on a blend carries more weight than the product name does.
Is a honey blend lower quality than pure honey?
It is a different product rather than a lesser one. Single-source honey is bought for its floral character; a blend is bought for the combination of ingredients in it. The problem arises only when a blend is presented as though it were a jar of unmixed honey.
What words may not appear on a Malaysian food label?
The Food Regulations 1985 prohibit the words compounded, medicated, tonic and health, or any other words of the same significance, on a label describing a food. They also bar any claim that a food is suitable for preventing, alleviating, treating or curing a disease, disorder or physiological condition.
Is SUBUR sold as honey or as a blend?
As a blend. It is raw honeycomb combined with nine other named ingredients, ten in total, every one of them printed on the label, with no artificial colour and no artificial flavour. The site describes it as a honey blend rather than as a jar of single-source honey.
