Dr. Ahmad Reza Mehrabian in a conversation with Public Relations Office of Shahid Beheshti University:
Honey quality control, plant origin analysis, and honey and pollen rating based on modern national and international standards
Dr. Ahmed Reza Mehrabian is a faculty member of Shahid Beheshti University’s Faculty of Life Sciences and Biotechnology and the CEO of Arman Shahd Arian Company (located in the Science and Technology Park of the university). He is the author/translator of eleven books, the most prominent of which are “Principles of Ecological Restoration of Plants: Reconstruction of Plant Habitats to Reintroduction of Plant Species”, “Principles of Plant Conservation: Challenges and Methods”, and “A review on Phytogeography of Iran: A Conservation Approach”. He is also the author of the first Iranian pollen atlas (forthcoming), more than 60 international and national scientific articles and eight scientific maps in the field of botany and plant conservation. Dr. Mehrabian is a supervisory member in three food standard writing committees of Iran’s National Standards Organization, a member of the corresponding committee of bee products, as well as two supervisory committees on flower pollen and honey of the International Organization for Standardization (ISO). Among his most important scientific actions are the establishment of a specialized laboratory for pollinology as well as the registration of two patents in the field of bee products and the establishment of a knowledge-based company for authentication, rating and quality control of honey and pollen and production of bee products. Below, you will read part of our interview with him:
• Would you please talk about the topic our discussion, i.e., “quality control and rating of honey for promotion, export, creation of a national brand and improvement of the society’s health.”
When we talk about honey, we should know that honey has a certain scientific definition. The Codex Alimentarius Commission, one of the key international food regulatory bodies and one of the subgroups of the World Food and Agriculture Organization, has defined honey as follows: “Honey is the natural sweet substance produced by honey bees from the nectar of plants or from secretions of living parts of plants or excretions of plant sucking insects on the living parts of plants, which the bees collect, transform by combining with specific substances of their own, deposit, dehydrate, store and leave in the honey comb to ripen and mature.” Unfortunately, there are major false beliefs in the field of honey. In the world, three different substances are offered as honey. One of these is fake honey which is made with artificial ingredients such as glucose and industrial sugar products and is sold in the market with the addition of color and essence. This substance is not the result of bee activity in any way and is not considered honey and is considered a symbol of pure fraud and its use is extremely harmful for humans. Another type of honey is semi-natural (nutritional or natural-nutritional) honey. This honey is produced by artificially feeding bees with natural or artificial sweeteners and, of course, in some cases, a percentage of feeding with flower nectar. The nutritional and medicinal value of this type is much lower than real honey. Natural or real honey is the honey that bees produce by using the nectar of the flower throughout their feeding period.
• How is it possible to distinguish these types of honey for the common consumer who does not have much to do with biology and specialized matters in this field? Is there a way to make this possible for ordinary people, or does this knowledge have to be achieved in a laboratory?
Of course, a series of characteristics of honey such as smell, taste, color and texture can be understood by the five senses (sensory or organoleptic analyses), but it requires an extremely high experience. Even professional beekeepers sometimes have trouble distinguishing real honey. For this reason, it is not possible for everyone to use it. The only way is the laboratory diagnosis by experts in the field of honey and to trust the trademarks approved by the Food and Drug Organization, the Standard Organization and the Veterinary Organization of the country.
• Considering the points you mentioned, what is your assessment of the state of honey production in the country? How efficient are the methods used for production?
According to the statistics of the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad in 2019, Iran ranks third to fourth in the world in terms of honey production. In addition, about 115,000 tons of honey are produced annually in the country and about 138,000 people are employed in this industry. This causes a very high turnover in this field. In Iran, due to the existence of approximately eight to nine thousand plant species, and diverse cold, tropical and temperate plant communities, there is a very great potential to produce high quality honeys with high nutritional value and high production. But there are also problems in this field. Firstly, honey is not produced according to health and quality standards in many cases. Honey is also not analyzed comprehensively and side by side. You know that in all over the world, honey is evaluated through five to six main components. The so-called physico-chemical components, evaluate honey in terms of chemical characteristics such as acidity, electrical conductivity, the amount of solid and suspended substances, and the amount of sucrose, proline, diastase, etc. Other existing evaluations analyze phytochemical compounds (plant chemistry). Based on this, any chemical that is present in flower nectar is also reflected in honey, and by tracking these substances, the type of honey can be recognized. The next Analysis is pollinology that we have used for the first time on an industrial scale in the country using an electron microscope. This analysis is effective in determining the plant origin and geographical origin of honey. Another type is the analysis of the absence of toxins, chemical inputs and antibiotics, which again evaluates honey in terms of health and organicity. Another type of analysis is organoleptic evaluation, which evaluates honey in terms of smell, taste, texture, and color. Microbiological analysis also evaluates the health of honey in terms of pathogenic microorganisms. If these analyzes are done together, we can be sure that a honey is fully evaluated, but if we use only one or two analyzes, there will be a possibility of fraud due to evaluation defects. Therefore, performing these analyzes together makes you able to distinguish real honey from fake one and rate the honey. The rating system that we have designed for honey for the first time in the country allows the price of each honey to be determined based on quality and all honeys of the same quality are sold at very close prices. Therefore, when a honey gets a premium rating, it should be offered at the same price in all parts of Iran. The result of the rating will be to improve consumer confidence, increase demand, reduce fraud, create national trademarks, promote exports and boost national production.
• During your discussion, you talked about the potential of our country in honey production. In your opinion, to what extent has this potential been used optimally? Are there any solutions for maximum and optimal use of this potential?
Iran has a high potential for honey production based on scientific documents and numerous climatological and botanical studies. While, in the winter, the beekeepers in the central and cold regions of the country are preparing to protect the bees, honey is being harvested in the south of the country. In summer, thyme honey is harvested in one part of the country, while barberry honey is harvested in another. We have about 55 to 60 types of honey in Iran. Gavan, thyme, Konar, and Citrus honeys are among the most prominent single-flower honeys (in which the nectar of one flower predominates the honey), and 40-herb pasture, mountain and plain honeys have different proportions of various nectars. All these cases show the high potential of Iran in this field. Of course, beekeeping in many parts of the world is based on new and modern methods. The use of efficient bee breeds, recognition of suitable habitats for bee breeding based on ecological principles, compliance with the principles of carrying capacity of pastures for honey production, use of suitable queens in beehives, proper training for beekeepers and the absence of chemical inputs all provide an opportunity for us to have natural honeys. According to scientific evidence, bees are considered one of the most important factors of natural pollinators, in such a way that in the absence of these valuable insects, human food security is endangered all over the world due to the reduction of plant production. In many countries of the world, there are contracts between farmers, gardeners and beekeepers. For example, in European and American countries, beekeepers settle next to apple, pear or rapeseed gardens to produce quality honeys. The gardener pays the beekeeper a large sum of money so that the bees feed on the nectar of the flower and pollinate, thereby increasing the production of the garden between three and twelve times. On the other hand, the beekeeper produces pure single-flower honey. These conditions are less available in our country. If this situation improves, the production of higher quality honey will flourish in the country.
• How are the tools and methods of honey production in our country compared to advanced countries in this field? Have we been able to take advantage of new technologies in Iran?
These technologies have been used in many cases. Beekeeping training in Iran is carried out by the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad and the Veterinary Organization, but like any other industry, it needs to be upgraded and updated. According to official statistics, out of natural honeys of the country, about thirty to forty percent can be exported. There are problems with regard to export, which is one of the infrastructures for the expansion of beekeeping. First, the analyzes are not all performed in a unified manner. This was realized in Shahid Beheshti University for the first time by establishing a knowledge-based company (Arman Shahd Arian Company) and is being implemented. Another problem is that the country’s honeys are not rated, and this issue brings some problems for export. In order to grow export, we need to provide infrastructure. Today, according to the official report of the Ministry of Agriculture Jihad, the amount of honey exports to many European countries has reached zero, because such analyzes have not been carried out and there is no proper monitoring. There are no suitable and high-quality packaging tools for honey export, and on the other hand, there is no national trademark for the production of national honey in the country. The national trademark can help to make Iranian honey known in the world. Many of our honeys are bought in bulk and are sold in the Persian Gulf countries in the form of other brands with a price of about a hundred times higher, without the name of Iran, while these profits can be given to the Iranian farmers and beekeepers.