If you have ever stood in the grocery aisle wondering whether the bear-shaped bottle in your hand is the same thing as the jar of honey from a local beekeeper, you are asking a smarter question than you might realize. It turns out the United States government has wrestled with that exact question for years, and the answer is more surprising than most people expect: there is no official federal definition that legally pins down what honey is.
That gap is where the term “standard of identity” comes in. It is one of the most important ideas in food labeling, and honey sits in an unusual spot relative to it. This post explains what a standard of identity actually is, what happened when the honey industry asked the FDA to create one, and what the rules really say about the honey on your shelf today.
What a “Standard of Identity” Actually Is
A standard of identity is a legal recipe. It is a federal regulation that spells out exactly what a food must contain, and sometimes how it must be made, in order to be sold under a particular name. The Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act gives the FDA the authority to write these definitions, and the agency has done so for hundreds of foods.
Think about the things you buy without a second thought. Mayonnaise has a standard of identity that requires a minimum amount of vegetable oil and egg. Peanut butter must be at least ninety percent peanuts. Milk chocolate has to contain a set percentage of cacao. When a product carries one of these names, the standard guarantees the contents match the label. It is a quiet system most shoppers never notice, and it is doing work on their behalf every time they reach for a familiar jar.
The Petition That Asked the FDA to Define Honey
Here is where honey’s story gets interesting. For most of the foods above, the definition has existed for decades. Honey never got one.
In March 2006, the American Beekeeping Federation, joined by several other honey organizations, filed a formal citizen petition asking the FDA to adopt a U.S. standard of identity for honey. Their model was the international Codex Alimentarius standard, which broadly defines honey as the natural sweet substance produced by honey bees from nectar, with nothing added and nothing taken away.
The beekeepers had a clear goal. A legal definition, they argued, would make it far easier to identify products passed off as honey when they were actually cut with cheaper sweeteners. It would protect shoppers from misleading labels and protect honest producers from competitors who diluted their product to lower the price.
What the FDA Decided in 2011
On October 5, 2011, after years of review, the FDA denied the petition. Its reasoning was straightforward, if a little anticlimactic: a special regulation was not necessary because the word honey already has a clear, commonly understood meaning.
The agency pointed to the dictionary definition, describing honey as a thick, sweet, syrupy substance that bees make as food from the nectar of flowers and store in honeycombs. In the FDA’s view, that everyday understanding already matched how the word is used, and existing laws against mislabeling and adulteration gave the agency the tools it needed to act against bad actors. A new standard of identity, it concluded, would not add meaningful protection.
It is worth clearing up a common misunderstanding here. The 2006 petition was not an attempt to label honey as artificial, and the FDA did not rule that honey is fake. The petition asked the agency to write a protective legal definition, and the FDA declined, saying the existing rules were enough.
So How Is Honey Regulated Today?
The absence of a standard of identity does not mean honey is unregulated. It simply means the rules come from general labeling law rather than a single dedicated definition.
In 2018, the FDA finalized guidance for industry on the proper labeling of honey. The core principle is simple and consumer-friendly. A product labeled as honey, or as pure honey, should be exactly that, with no added sweeteners. If a producer mixes honey with corn syrup, cane sugar, or any other sweetener, the product can no longer be sold as plain honey. It has to be labeled as a blend, and the added ingredients have to be disclosed on the label.
In practice, that gives shoppers more protection than the missing standard of identity might suggest. The FDA also maintains long-standing import alerts that allow it to detain shipments of imported honey suspected of being cut with corn or cane sugar. Between truthful-labeling rules and border enforcement, the agency has real tools, even without a formal definition on the books.
The State-by-State Patchwork
Not everyone was satisfied with the federal decision. In the years since, a number of states have stepped in and written their own honey definitions. Florida was among the first, and California and others followed.
The catch is that these state standards are not identical. The wording shifts from one state to the next, which is exactly the kind of inconsistency the original petitioners hoped a single national standard would prevent. Congress took note: the 2014 Farm Bill directed the U.S. Department of Agriculture to study whether a federal standard would serve consumers and the honey industry. The conversation, in other words, never fully closed.
Why This Matters When You Buy Honey
So what does all of this mean for the jar in your pantry? The practical takeaway is that the label does a lot of work. A jar that simply says honey, with one ingredient and no added sweeteners listed, is held to the FDA’s truthful-labeling expectations.
This is also where buying from a source you trust earns its keep. When you know where your honey comes from, the regulatory fine print matters less, because you already have the answer the petitioners were chasing. Every jar in our Eastern Shore Honey collection is minimally filtered, single-ingredient honey: just what the bees made, with nothing added. If you want to go deeper on what that actually means, our guide to what honey is and how it is made walks through the whole journey from flower to jar, and our breakdown of how regular honey compares to minimally filtered honey explains how processing changes what ends up on the shelf.
The government may never have written honey its own legal definition. But you can still hold the honey you buy to a high standard. Read the label, know your source, and choose honey that has nothing to hide.
FAQs About Honey and the Standard of Identity
Does the FDA have a standard of identity for honey?
No. The FDA denied a 2006 petition to create one in 2011, concluding that the common dictionary meaning of honey, combined with existing labeling and adulteration laws, was sufficient. To date, there is no dedicated federal standard of identity for honey.
How does the FDA define honey?
In its labeling guidance, the FDA describes honey as a thick, sweet, syrupy substance that bees make as food from the nectar of flowers and store in honeycombs. The agency treats that everyday meaning as the working definition rather than a formal standard of identity.
Can a product labeled honey contain added sugar?
No. Under the FDA’s 2018 labeling guidance, a product sold as honey or pure honey should contain only honey. If corn syrup, cane sugar, or another sweetener is added, the product must be labeled as a blend and the added ingredients disclosed.
Why did the beekeeping industry want a standard of identity?
The American Beekeeping Federation and other groups wanted a clear legal definition to make it easier to act against products diluted with cheaper sweeteners and sold as honey, protecting both shoppers and honest producers.
Do individual states define honey?
Yes. Because there is no federal standard, several states, starting with Florida and followed by California and others, have adopted their own honey definitions. The wording varies from state to state, which is the kind of inconsistency a single national standard was meant to avoid.
