Laboratory Standards, Honey Production Quality Assured Honeys ...

The third part of the process is in our quality control process.

Once we started to export our honeys we introduced an in house laboratory.  This was to ensure that all off our products comply with increasingly stringent definitions of what honey is, demanded from various governments.

We developed our own Standardised Testing System to ensure the accuracy of our testing.  We use a full array of organoleptic and scientific testing measures.  This honey analysis service is something we now offer on a commercial basis to other honey producers.

Over the years we have built up a comprehensive data base of several thousand honey samples to enable comparison analysis to be made.  Accurate comparison is the only way to ensure conformity of honey type, especially mono floral honeys.  We discovered that sugar comparisons, colour other chemical and pollen comparisons did not vary greatly between samples of a common type.

So now days we are able to accurately compare most honeys with known samples in order to confirm the identity of floral source.

We measure the sugar contents and types in all of our honeys in particular we measure everything using photo spectrometry; we test diastase, invertase and hydroxymethyl-furaldehyde also utilising photo spectrometry.  We also measure the colour of honey on the p/fund scale in mm.

Using microscopy we also analyse pollen content to help finitely determine the origins of each type and to check the levels of undesolvable matter present.  Finally each batch is taste tested before its approved and given its gold Littleover Apiary label.