A Sticky Situation: Odysea Ltd. v London Borough of Waltham Forest

The Honey Industry’s Labelling Dilemma

In the quest to ensure honest practices and accurate information in the food industry, product labelling has long been disputed between producers, retailers, and regulatory bodies. It is far too easy to mislead consumers with deceptive labelling, yet asking exactly what defines some of the key marketing terms in the industry often proves fruitless. Following a protracted legal battle, a Tribunal has ruled that Odysea Ltd.’s labelling of a product as “raw honey” did not violate any existing laws or regulations, or mislead consumers in any significant way. However, it was also recognised that clearer guidance and definitions are needed to assess what precisely constitutes “raw” honey, and Odysea Ltd.’s product did not possess any unique characteristics that distinguished it from other honeys sold on the market.

Defining Honey

But first, the context: 

Under the Honey (England) Regulations 2015, “honey” is defined as,

“the natural sweet substance produced by Apis mellifera 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 honeycombs to ripen and mature”.

This legislation also considers relevant definitions of concepts such as “comb honey”, “blossom honey” and “filtered honey”, amongst others, but makes no such distinction for “raw honey”, leaving the definition of this product in a regulatory grey area. 

The Legal Dispute

It is this grey area that prompted Waltham Forest Trading Standards to issue an Improvement Notice to Odysea Ltd., suggesting that their labelling of the product as “raw” violated Article 7(1)(c) of the Food Information to Consumers Regulation (EU) No.1169/2011 by implying that their product possessed some special characteristic, when in fact all honeys possess such characteristics. Odysea appealed this notice by suggesting that their honey was unpasteurised and was never heated above 40 degrees Celsius, which caused a significant difference in the level of certain enzymes and chemicals when compared to pasteurised honey products.

In deciding whether the arguments of Odysea and the London Borough of Waltham Forest held, the Tribunal was asked to consider two matters: is there a specific and accepted definition of “raw” concerning honey, and does labelling Odysea’s honey as “raw” mislead consumers? 

Tribunal’s Deliberation

On the first point, the representatives of Odysea suggested that it was the minimal processing that occurred that made their product “raw”, and this conferred special characteristics on the honey. Mr Manuelides, Odysea’s managing director, restated that their honey was “unpasteurised” as it was never artificially warmed above 40 degrees Celsius, which granted the honey a more full-bodied taste, higher purity and higher levels of nutritional enzymes when compared to pasteurised alternatives.

Waltham Forest disagreed, suggesting that “raw” ought to mean “uncooked” as it does with other products. To “cook” honey was equated with pasteurisation in this case, the process of overheating the honey to destroy the natural yeast and enzymes present in the product. Under this definition, all honeys qualify as “raw” as overheated honey is specially designated under “Baker’s honey” in the 2015 regulations. This therefore suggests that Odysea’s product contained no measurable special characteristic from any other honey. The fact that it contains higher enzymatic activity is irrelevant; all honey is either raw, or baker’s honey.

Tribunal’s Ruling

With these arguments considered, Judge Neville ruled that Waltham Forest’s definition ought to be rejected as the practices of “unacceptable” cooking and “acceptable” pasteurisation cannot be clearly distinguished, and that any such distinction does not make linguistic or scientific sense when related to honey. However, he also wrote that Odysea’s proposed solution failed to comprise a precise definition, with choosing the threshold of processing that would transform a honey from “raw” to “non-raw” being especially troublesome. The Tribunal therefore rejected both proposed definitions, and emphasised that Odysea’s honey did not contain any unique characteristics to set it apart from other similar products.

Nonetheless, the tribunal also ruled that Odysea’s labelling of their honey as “raw” did not mislead consumers, or breach existing regulations. The word “raw” accurately portrayed a lack of processing on the part of the honey’s producer, even if such a lack of processing did not necessarily confer any unique properties on the honey itself.

Future Implications

What is there to take away from this ruling? Firstly, Judge Neville advocated the need for clearer guidance to assist consumers, producers, and regulators in understanding the distinction between different types of honey and ensure compliance with food standards and regulations. At a wider glance, this case emphasises the necessity of clear, structured, accurate food labelling. Where utilised terms may have a wide range of disputed and agreed interpretations, it is important that regulators can provide precise guidelines as to what defines the threshold of certain disputed terms in a manner that is intelligible to all stakeholders. 

To continue without such guidance and regulation may expose sections of the consuming public to misinformation as a result of misleading labelling practices, confusing and deceiving them as to a product’s unique characteristics and potentially causing them to buy products based solely on their misunderstanding and false promises of benefit.

By James Barber