Part of the process of extracting honey from a frame. (Photo by Kathy Keatley Garvey)

It's interesting that a company based in Rotterdam, The Netherlands, has announced plans to produce a "bee-free honey."

Snackandbakery.com recently published a piece about Fooditive's plans. 

"By mass-producing a bio-identical honey that eliminates the need to intensively farm honeybees, Fooditive aims to create a scalable, provenanced supply," the article related. "This will address consumer concerns about animal welfare and sustainability, as well as provide all the traditional benefits of traditional honey."

The Dutch-based company proclaims on its website: "At the beginning of our journey, we had a dream. The dream was to create something that could change the world and make people's lives better by making the world sweeter with no side effects. We wanted to help people get the things they need or just make their day better, but the dream grew and became a mission to make healthy food affordable."

The dream now is to apparently to start production trials in 2023 of "the world's first 100 percent bee-free honey."

Fooditive founder and CEO Moayad Abushokhedim is quoted as saying: “Our goal is to provide the world's first 100% bee-free honey with no compromise on taste, quality or price. The process of genetic sequence modification used in our honey already has an established track record with our vegan casein. We believe our process will be the stepping stone for a revolutionary advancement in the food and biotechnology industries, enabling any animal product to be mimicked and even improved by bioengineering plant-based ingredients.”

The problem is, if it's not from bees, it's not honey. Call it Hon-ee, or Hawn-ee or Hun-ee, but it's not honey.  There's also a product called "Bee Free Honee," an apple-based vegan alternative to honey. The company went out of business in 2019.

Amina Harris, director of the UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center (no, not the UC Davis Bee-Free Honey and Pollination Center) minces no words. "Call it what it is. A honey substitute. Or a vegan alternative."

"Honey," she says, "is the product of honey bees."

Want to learn about honey? What the honey bees really make? The UC Davis Honey and Pollination Center is offering a series of three classes on Honey Exploration where you can learn about--and taste--honey varietals throughout the world. The series starts Feb. 8, continues March 22, and ends April 25.

Honey Exploration: California

Honey Exploration: United States