The rise of honey as it becomes the sweetener of choice
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Why is honey becoming the sweetener of choice for clean‑eating consumers?
Today we're joined by Bloomberg News reporter Eileena Peng. Honey has been the sweetener of choice for people who want to eat clean and avoid sugar, but it's also resulted in shortages and price hikes. Eileena, people are using it in their smoothies, they're doing it in their oatmeal, putting it on Chinese roast pork, but how much has the price of honey gone up?
Yeah, honey has become really, really trendy as of late. Uh, we're seeing it a lot in terms of like hot and spicy products. It's also becoming a more common sweetener as Americans go towards clean eating. Prices have stayed relatively stable in the US, but that's largely due to a wave of imports that have been helping to stabilize the supply situation.
Well, those imports are gonna be facing tariffs, right? I I keep thinking of like hot honey and different kinds of honey uh products that I haven't seen in years.
How are U.S. honey imports and tariffs affecting domestic supply and prices?
Yeah, absolutely. So the imports that come into the US from countries like India and Argentina are subject to higher um higher tariffs via the Department of Commerce. Those were put in place in twenty twenty two. Um, but largely um we're still seeing those imports continue to flow in just to meet the influx of domestic demand as domestic US production dropped. Why is
the production going down?
Yeah, there's a lot of long term factors that USB keepers have been struggling with. So for one, there's the parasitic varroa destructor.
What long‑term challenges are causing U.S. honey production to decline?
I'm sure maybe a few years ago you heard about like the Save the Bees campaign. That's what this was about. And unfortunately the industry's still struggling with that. There was quite a significant seasonal die-off recently. Um just because the most widely used pesticide, some of the mites have started to become resistant to that. And it's also the fact that in the US it is more economical for beekeepers to shift their hives towards pollinating crops as opposed to making honey. And so that's also one of the factors that is leading to honey production being down overall.
Is the demand from consumers, individual consumers, or is it in industrial uh like restaurants and manufacturers? Because I keep thinking like there's a lot of honey at the local farmers market and a lot of people want to stay local because they wanna, you know, buy that and help their their local farmer.
Who is driving the rising demand for honey – consumers, restaurants or manufacturers?
I'm wondering, um, are are those people impacted as well?
Yeah, of course. Um, so we're seeing demand across the spectrum really. So consumers for sure, some of them are going towards those like more premium farmer market products that you might see, but on an on an industrial scale, it's also the fact that food manufacturers and restaurants are also trying to use it in sweeteners. Um, like David Beckham, for example, did a line of honey sweetened fruit snacks. um just in response to where consumer demand is going toward.
Is this because we're all trying to get away from plain white sugar?
I think so. Um if you look at overall US sweetener consumption, it's really flattened over time.
Is the shift away from white sugar boosting honey’s market share?
High fructose corn Europe has obviously dropped quite significantly since the two thousands. Um but honey is a steady climb upward.
But is there anything to be done for the the beekeepers, for the farmers, for um, you know, the the people who like we want to keep using it, but we also don't want to um You know, drive some of these smaller farmers out of business.
Yeah, it's a tough situation because the the beekeepers obviously what they need in some sense is higher prices for honey. And they've long argued that the wave of foreign imports sort of undercuts their prices because at a commercial scale, a lot of US honey gets blended with foreign honey and so the US producers might be subject to basically their prices being dragged down a little by foreign imports.
You know, I read that i i for some farmers it was m more lucrative for them to provide their bees as pollinators rather than honey producers. And and silly me, I I thought you could do both.
Yes, no, you absolutely can do both, but you can't do both equally well is what I learned.
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Chapters
6 chapters
1
Why is honey becoming the sweetener of choice for clean‑eating consumers?
0:00–0:54
2
How are U.S. honey imports and tariffs affecting domestic supply and prices?
0:54–1:34
3
What long‑term challenges are causing U.S. honey production to decline?
1:34–2:26
4
Who is driving the rising demand for honey – consumers, restaurants or manufacturers?
2:26–3:09
5
Is the shift away from white sugar boosting honey’s market share?
3:09–4:16
6
What strategies can beekeepers use to balance pollination services and honey production?
4:16–5:03
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from KCBS Bloomberg Tech and Business Report
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