Honey, Jams & Spreads

Honey, jams and spreads are sold on a laboratory file as much as on taste, and five products carry most of the enquiries: bulk natural honey (HS 0409.00) in 300 kg drums and IBCs, manuka and premium monofloral honey under the same code, fruit jams (HS 2007.99) and citrus marmalades (HS 2007.91), fruit purées and bake-stable bakery fillings (HS 2007.99), and hazelnut cocoa spreads (HS 1806.90) with peanut butter (HS 2008.11) and other nut butters (HS 2008.19). Honey is the trade with the authenticity problem: the EU "From the Hives" action found 147 of 320 imported samples, 46%, suspicious of non-compliance, so buyers ask for C4 sugar results under AOAC 998.12 together with NMR or LC-HRMS profiles, and New Zealand manuka must pass MPI's four chemical markers and DNA test. Jams changed standard in 2026, when Directive (EU) 2024/1438 raised the EU minimum fruit content to 450 g per kg for jam and 500 g for extra jam from 14 June 2026, the same date honey blends began carrying every origin with its percentage on the label. UN Comtrade 2024 export declarations put HS 0409.00 at USD 2.16 billion (China USD 265 million, New Zealand USD 251 million, India USD 180 million, Argentina USD 171 million, Ukraine USD 167 million), HS 2007.99 at USD 3.74 billion (France USD 535 million, Türkiye USD 355 million, Italy USD 315 million), HS 2007.91 at USD 139 million and HS 2008.11 at USD 2.50 billion, a code that also includes roasted peanuts.

The buyers are honey packers, importer-distributors, supermarket private-label desks, hotel and airline portion-pack suppliers, and bakery, biscuit, confectionery and cereal manufacturers in the Gulf, Europe, Africa, Asia and North America. CBIL is a commodity brokerage company and brokers these products in the producer's brand or the buyer's private label, against the origin authority's health certificate, an accredited certificate of analysis, a certificate of origin and a halal certificate from a body the destination accepts. EU-bound honey comes from origins listed for honey in Annex -I to Implementing Regulation (EU) 2021/405 and is tested for chloramphenicol and nitrofurans against Regulation (EU) 2019/1871; nut butters carry aflatoxin results against Regulation (EU) 2023/915, which caps groundnut products for the final consumer at 2.0 µg/kg B1 and 4.0 µg/kg total; Gulf labels follow GSO 9, with honey to GSO 147; and US shipments need FDA facility registration and prior notice, with raw honey from Argentina, Brazil, India and Viet Nam subject to US antidumping duty orders at exporter-specific rates. Drums, pails and cartons move in 20-ft or 40-ft dry containers on FOB, CFR and CIF terms, and minimum lots are confirmed per product and pack. Send the product, grade, test panel, pack, label and discharge port, and the enquiry is screened and worked against it.