Raw Honey: How to Buy the Real Thing in the UK

Raw honey is honey that has not been pasteurised or fine-filtered — and because UK law defines no raw category, buying it well means buying evidence: per-batch HMF and diastase numbers, not a word on a lid.

Raw describes what did not happen to a honey between the hive and the jar: no pasteurisation, no fine filtration, no hot bottling run. UK law never defines the word — so a raw label is exactly as trustworthy as the evidence its seller puts behind it.

Is “raw honey” a legal category in the UK?

No. The Honey (England) Regulations 2015 set compositional limits every jar sold as honey must meet, but they name no raw category. What they do set are limits on the two markers laboratories use to detect heating and poor storage: hydroxymethylfurfural (HMF), capped at 40 mg/kg for most honey, and diastase activity, floored at 8 on the Schade scale — with narrow carve-outs for tropical and naturally low-enzyme honeys. HMF builds as honey is heated; diastase, an enzyme naturally present, falls. That makes a raw claim checkable: legally undefined, but measurable per batch. Our guide to what raw honey is takes this apart in full.

How does raw differ from conventional processing?

Honey processed at scale is typically warmed so it flows quickly through pumps, filters and filling lines and stays liquid longer on the shelf, and may be finely filtered. None of that is improper — it is still honey within the regulations — but it is the opposite of what raw asserts. Raw handling stops at extraction, coarse straining and settling. What heating changes is the subject of raw honey vs pasteurised. Raw also says nothing about floral source — a separate axis, and the confusion raw honey vs manuka untangles.

What should a UK buyer look for on the label?

The first three rows are legal requirements; the last two are where a raw claim lives.

On the label	What it has to mean
Country of origin	The country where the honey was harvested must be stated; a blend from more than one country may carry a general blend wording instead.
A floral name — “thyme honey”	Must come wholly or mainly from the named source, with the sensory and chemical character to match.
A regional name — “Cretan”	Must come entirely from the indicated origin.
“Raw”, “unpasteurised”, a processing statement	No legal definition — the seller’s claim, and it stands on the next row.
Per-batch HMF and diastase results	Not required by law; the voluntary evidence that makes a raw claim checkable.

Blend wordings are lawful and tell you very little — the practical case for varietal honey with a named origin. The whole label read as a checklist, origin wording included, is in best honey UK. What a thyme label should mean is in our thyme honey guide; the wider Greek shelf — thyme, pine, fir — in Greek honey.

Fig. I · Reading two labelsDiagram

Entry	A single-origin varietal jar	A commodity blend
Origin declaration	One named country — “Produce of Greece”	A general blend wording — “blend of honeys…”
Floral source	Named — thyme, heather, pine	Rarely stated
Processing statement	Often stated — “unpasteurised, coarse-strained”	Not usually stated
Evidence of handling	Per-batch HMF and diastase, where published	Legal limits apply; figures rarely published
What the price reflects	The flower, the handling, the evidence	Volume and a consistent shelf product

Two label grammars, not two products: each line is something to read off a real UK label. Neither column is a Thymelia product, and no measured value appears — where a jar publishes per-batch figures, judge it on those.

Why does raw honey crystallise?

Because honey is mostly sugar and not much water — at least 60 g of fructose and glucose per 100 g in blossom honey, at most 20 per cent moisture in most types, under the same regulations — and sugar that concentrated orders itself into crystals. How fast depends chiefly on the fructose/glucose ratio, the key characteristic for crystallisation; growth runs faster the more glucose a honey carries. Set and creamed honeys are made by running the same process under control, in practice at around 14 °C, so a jar that turns grainy in the cupboard has not failed. It has behaved like honey. What to do with a set jar is in crystallised honey; why the same honey can be sold thick or pouring in set vs runny honey.

Fig. II · The legal shape of honeyDiagram

Sugars — a floor: at least 60 of 100Moisture — a ceiling: at most 20 of 100Open — the law’s headroom

Drawn from the Honey (England) Regulations 2015, Schedule 1, cited in the sources below: sugars are a floor of 60 for blossom honey, moisture a ceiling of 20 for most types — the open cells are the law’s headroom, not a recipe. Narrow statutory exceptions (heather and baker’s honey) allow more moisture. No product is drawn.

How common is fake honey?

Common enough to measure. When the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre screened honey imported into the EU in a 2021–22 coordinated action, 147 of 320 samples — 46 per cent — were flagged as suspect of containing added sugar syrups. A flag is a screening result, not proof of fraud, and the exercise was not designed to represent the whole market; still the clearest recent picture of the problem. The checks that work for a buyer, and the kitchen folklore that does not, are in how to tell if honey is real.

Two notes that apply to any honey

Honey of any kind — raw or processed, blended or single-origin — is not suitable for infants under 12 months: honey occasionally contains bacteria that can produce toxins in a baby’s intestines, leading to infant botulism, and NHS guidance is to give no honey before one year. Bee products are also allergens for some people. Neither changes with how a honey was handled.

Where THYMELIA stands

THYMELIA is a UK house for Cretan bee products from Chania, in western Crete. Not everything we plan to offer will be raw — the word earns its place jar by jar, and where it appears it will carry per-batch HMF and diastase results against the limits above. What we test, and the figures we hold a jar to, is at testing.

Asked, answered.

Is "raw honey" a legal category in the UK?

No. The Honey (England) Regulations 2015 set compositional limits that every honey must meet — including HMF at no more than 40 mg/kg and diastase activity at no less than 8 Schade for most honey — but they define no raw category. A raw claim is therefore the seller's own, and the honest way to make it is per-batch laboratory results against those two markers.

Does raw honey crystallise?

Readily, and that is expected behaviour. Honey is a dense sugar solution, and how quickly it sets depends chiefly on its fructose/glucose ratio — the key characteristic for honey crystallisation. Minimal processing does nothing to delay it, so a honey sold on its handling will often set in the jar. Crystallisation changes texture and appearance, not what the honey is.

Can babies have raw honey?

No — and no other honey either. NHS guidance is not to give honey to a child until they are over one year old, because honey occasionally contains bacteria that can produce toxins in a baby's intestines, leading to infant botulism, a very serious illness. The advice covers every kind of honey: raw or processed, set or runny, whatever its price or origin.

How should honey be stored?

In a sealed jar, somewhere dry, at room temperature and away from direct sunlight. The regulations cap the moisture of most honey at 20 per cent, and a closed lid is what keeps it there — honey left open can slowly take up moisture from the air. If it sets in the cupboard, that is crystallisation, not a storage failure.

Is crystallised honey spoiled?

No. Crystallisation is a physical change — glucose ordering itself into crystals — not deterioration, and producers make set and creamed honey by running the same process deliberately under controlled conditions. A grainy jar can be eaten as it is, or returned to liquid by standing it in warm water; the texture changes, the honey does not stop being honey.