According to Council Directive 2001/110/EC of 20 December 2001, on honey:
“Honey is 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.”
In short, honey is a product that comes solely from the work of bees where nothing has been added or removed.
A little science!
The nectar that the bee will forage on is originally rich in sucrose. Slowly but surely, it will transform it into glucose and fructose. The percentage of these main sugars which are naturally present in honey will therefore vary according to the type of flowers the bees gather:
This is a completely natural phenomenon. Liquid honey is, by default, the honey that beekeepers will harvest directly from the hives. There is no such thing as creamy honey in its natural state. To give the honey a creamy consistency, Famille Michaud uses a natural but complex technique, whilst fully respecting the honey’s quality.
According to the European Union, together with olive oil, honey is one of the 5 most counterfeited food products in the world. To provide you with honey that complies with the regulations, checks and analyses are essential.
Forget the “homemade” techniques seen on social media such as paper towels, a glass of water, etc., the only way to guarantee the purity as well as the floral and geographical designation of a honey is through a laboratory analysis.
At Famille Michaud, we carry out a 3-step analysis process:
All these checks are performed by a partner laboratory that has expertise in honey analyses.
Honey from France is indeed a top-quality honey but there are lots of parameters to consider to ensure the quality of a honey:
Each area makes is able to obtain specific, diverse, tasty and therefore quality honey. At Famille Michaud, 100% of the honey is carefully selected, analysed and checked by a partner laboratory, before being put in jars, whether they are harvested in France or elsewhere.
Only analysis can guarantee the purity, geographical origin and floral designation of a honey. This is what allows us to ensure that our honey are 100% pure and natural, in accordance with the current regulations.
At Famille Michaud, ALL our honey are carefully analysed by a laboratory to guarantee their purity, their geographical origin and their floral designation.
Whether they come from here or elsewhere, our supplies are subject to the same strict standards of traceability and quality control. That’s why you will never find fraudulent honey in our jars.
At Famille Michaud, we ensure that your honey is quality honey.
Famille Michaud guarantees its consumers only pure, compliant and quality honey, where nothing has been added and nothing has been removed.
According to the European Union, together with olive oil, honey is one of the 5 most counterfeited food products in the world.
There are 3 types of honey fraud:
In order to guarantee honey quality, Famille Michaud carries out a 3-step analysis process:
Our commitment to our consumers is to always offer quality and tasty honey; we will source and select the honey where they are produced, available and have the best quality according to the harvests and the seasons.
The main countries where we source our honey: France, Spain, Ukraine, Argentina, Hungary, Italy, Bulgaria, Chile…
This list may change depending on the available harvests and the honey quality.
You might think that honey is flowing freely in France, but this is not the case.
There is a very large deficit between production and consumption. Indeed, the French consume between 45 and 50,000 tonnes of honey per year, while the average annual harvest has been just 25,000 tonnes in recent years.
Furthermore, importing honey allows you to discover floral designations that we do not or very rarely find in France:
Stating the origin of a honey is a legal obligation that informs consumers about where the product has come from. At Famille Michaud, we place great importance on transparency and the information available to consumers, which is why we state all the origins of the honey we offer on the front or back of our jars and measuring cups.
It’s also important to point out that honey is the most transparent category of breakfast products.
When it comes to jarring our honey, this takes place in the Pyrenees and more specifically in Gan.
Because its creator, Yves Michaud, was a passionate engineer and beekeeper. He was also the one to carry out the first migratory beekeeping. Beekeeping has always been part of our history and has been for more than 100 years.
Today we have 150 hives, managed by our beekeeper. This allows us to always be as close as possible to the problems that our partner beekeepers (or the professional beekeeping sector) may encounter.
Yes, we have historically worked with more than 600 French professional beekeepers.
Famille Michaud is the leading buyer of honey in France.
We participate in trade fairs and those for the general public to promote honey from France, to educate people about bees and the beekeeping profession, to raise awareness of biodiversity among future generations… As a reminder, in France, there are more than 60,000 beekeepers officially declared (to the French Food Standards Agency). Anyone who owns a hive, and who declares it, will therefore be identified as a beekeeper. So-called “professional” beekeepers (from 150 hives), represent only 4% of the workforce. These are the beekeepers that Famille Michaud works with.
