Chances are if you’ve had a sore throat or a nasty cold, you’ve turned to honey to ease your symptoms. The health benefits of honey are well-touted from its anti-bacterial properties to its powerful nutrients and antioxidants, but some honeys are better for you than others and the purer the honey, the greater its benefits.

Wellness

Forbes magazine has called 2019 the ‘year of the wellness revolution’ with more and more of us concerned with our spiritual, physical and mental wellbeing. When it comes to food, we are more aware of what we are putting in our bodies. Pure honey is naturally sweet and has become a healthier option over processed sugars and sweeteners. Honey also contains many vitamins, minerals and natural antioxidants which helps maintain good health and build immunity against sickness.

Authenticity

Research by the European Commission between 2015-2017 showed that at least 14% of honey samples taken with the EU market did not conform to purity benchmarks – namely that sugar syrup had been added to the product and that the honey was not unprocessed and raw.

The average composition of raw honey is approximately 80% carbohydrates, 18% water and 2% vitamins, minerals and amino acids, which is what you find in a jar of Keepr’s honey. Our honey is 100% pure and raw, retaining all its natural goodness. We do not blend it with other non EU and EU honeys and it complies with SALSA food safety standards. We ensure it has a better quality and taste, but most of all, as it is not pasteurised, it contains natural vitamins, enzymes and antioxidants.

Provenance

The European Commission also found in its research that some products wrongly described the geographical and/or botanical origin of the honey. At Keepr’s, we know where our honey comes from and can trace each batch back to the hives where it was produced in the Oxfordshire Cotswolds. We work with Reading and Oxford Universities to DNA our honey so we can see its origins, while our in-house laboratory checks all our honey from hive to jar for impurities to ensure our honey is of the highest quality and contains no impurities or foreign honeys.

Sustainability

By buying locally-produced raw honey you are supporting efforts to save the bees by encouraging British beekeepers to maintain more hives and enabling bees to produce this naturally-occurring product themselves. Shopping locally supports the local economy, and British produce, therefore reducing our food mileage and increasing our confidence in knowing where our food has come from.

Watch our video to find out more about our honey and its origins.