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The Honey Launderers: Uncovering the Largest Food Fraud in U.S. History
Business Week via Yahoo ^ | Sep 23, 2013 | Susan Berfield

Posted on 09/24/2013 2:05:20 PM PDT by Excellence

Magnus von Buddenbrock and Stefanie Giesselbach arrived in Chicago in 2006 full of hope. He was 30, she was 28, and they had both won their first overseas assignments at ALW Food Group, a family-owned food-trading company based in Hamburg. Von Buddenbrock had joined ALW—the initials stand for its founder, Alfred L. Wolff—four years earlier after earning a degree in marketing and international business, and he was expert in the buying and selling of gum arabic, a key ingredient in candy and soft drinks. Giesselbach had started at ALW as a 19-year-old apprentice. She worked hard, learned quickly, spoke five languages, and within three years had become the company’s first female product manager. Her specialty was honey. When the two colleagues began their new jobs in a small fourth-floor office a few blocks from Millennium Park in downtown Chicago, ALW’s business was growing, and all they saw was opportunity.

On March 24, 2008, von Buddenbrock came to the office around 8:30 a.m., as usual. He was expecting a quiet day: It was a holiday in Germany, and his bosses there had the day off. Giesselbach was on holiday, too; she had returned to Germany to visit her family and boyfriend. Sometime around 10 a.m., von Buddenbrock heard a commotion in the reception area and went to have a look. A half-dozen armed federal agents, all wearing bulletproof vests, had stormed in. “They made a good show, coming in with full force,” he recalls. “It was pretty scary.”

(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...


TOPICS: Food
KEYWORDS: china; honey; threatmatrix
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To: concerned about politics

I’m eating the last quart jar of honey that I bought on sale back during the 1990s, I guess the new stuff will be pricier.


21 posted on 09/24/2013 2:44:53 PM PDT by ansel12 ( 'I'm on That New Obama Diet... Every Day I Let Vladimir Putin Eat My Lunch' .)
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To: Excellence

Honey is almost no different from sugar, except for the bacteria, fungus and plant garbage inside it.

It doesn’t go bad under most conditions of storage because it hasn’t enough water for the bacteria to grow.

Add some water to a petri dish with honey, and watch all the pretty colors of stuff grow. Throw it away without opening.


22 posted on 09/24/2013 2:47:36 PM PDT by donmeaker (Youth is wasted on the young.)
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To: Excellence
Buy local.

Excellent point. I had no idea about this honey scam but i try to buy locally produced honey, beer and gasoline. ;o)

23 posted on 09/24/2013 2:47:37 PM PDT by Liberty Valance (Keep a simple manner for a happy life :o)
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To: pluvmantelo

An interesting prep would be a bee hive or three out inthe boonies...

Honey can help make up for vital calories in the winter and stores very well not to mention it’s barter value.


24 posted on 09/24/2013 2:48:19 PM PDT by GraceG
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To: donmeaker

Honey is almost no different from sugar, except for the bacteria, fungus and plant garbage inside it.

It doesn’t go bad under most conditions of storage because it hasn’t enough water for the bacteria to grow.

Add some water to a petri dish with honey, and watch all the pretty colors of stuff grow. Throw it away without opening.

Which is why you don’t give it to babies who haven’t gotten all their immune system antibodies from their mommies...


25 posted on 09/24/2013 2:49:25 PM PDT by GraceG
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To: Excellence

Mama don’t take my Honeycomb away.


26 posted on 09/24/2013 2:49:41 PM PDT by 867V309 (Stupidity is ordained; Ignorance is a choice.)
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To: GraceG
Honey can help make up for vital calories in the winter and stores very well not to mention it’s barter value.

Also good for cuts or burns. Honey contains natural enzymes as well as peroxide.
There's also bees wax inside the hives. Bees wax candles don't drip like other candles when they're made right.

27 posted on 09/24/2013 2:53:59 PM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: concerned about politics; DBrow

I’m a hobby beekeeper, too.

How do you do the creaming process?


28 posted on 09/24/2013 2:57:33 PM PDT by Rio (Proud resident of the State of Jefferson)
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To: IYAS9YAS; kabumpo

I have no problem with the FDA protecting us from adulterated food products, but that’s not what these people were prosecuted for. They were prosecuted by Homeland Security for not paying a punitive tariff on Chinese honey. They broke the law and paid the price, but I don’t think the government ought to be driving consumer prices up by charging punitive tariffs to keep competing commodities out. They do it for other industries, too. Basically picking winners and losers, like they often do with the tax code as well.


29 posted on 09/24/2013 2:58:53 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: IYAS9YAS

“Nothing a little warm water can’t fix. “

True! But 99.99 percent of shoppers will pass it by. If even 15% pass on it it’s a significant cost.


30 posted on 09/24/2013 2:59:43 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: BfloGuy

AQ is HUGE in honey markets.


31 posted on 09/24/2013 3:02:11 PM PDT by combat_boots (The Lion of Judah cometh. Hallelujah. Gloria Patri, Filio et Spiritui Sancto!)
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To: colorado tanker

I read the article. It wasn’t just cheap. It was adultered and contaminated. And it was from China, but I repeat myself.


32 posted on 09/24/2013 3:04:25 PM PDT by Cold Heart
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To: Rio

There is a temperature that honey loves to crystallize at. You stir in very small honey crystals to act as a seed (possibly grinding up regular crystallized honey in a mortar) and hold the batch at the right temperature. the combo of the temp and seed crystals assures that the crystals you get will be small and the honey will be creamy.

I add in a little chile powder and a touch of powdered garlic, sometimes.

There are other ways to do it, too.


33 posted on 09/24/2013 3:04:27 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: combat_boots

OBL was a honey merchant and beekeeper, iirc


34 posted on 09/24/2013 3:05:08 PM PDT by DBrow
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To: BenLurkin

Seems like real honey, but the pollen was often filtered out to disguise the country of origin (different local flora, different pollen to test for). So, it came from bees, but under the FDA standard in that article, it might not have qualified as “real” honey.


35 posted on 09/24/2013 3:06:41 PM PDT by Boogieman
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To: Cold Heart
I have no problem with the FDA protecting us from adulterated food products

But I repeat myself.

36 posted on 09/24/2013 3:09:00 PM PDT by colorado tanker
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To: Rio
How do you do the creaming process?

Strange fact - you can reduce the size of the crystals that form in your honey by "inoculating" your batch with a creamed "starter." The honey you have inoculated will reproduce only small crystals (the same size as the starter you put in). Don't know why, but it will. ALL the crystals will form to match what ever you put in.
You need enough starter to equal 1/10th of the honey you wish to cream. Mix it WELL.

If you don't have access to a starter, you can make your own. Grind up some larger crystallized honey in a meat grinder until it's like peanut butter and use that. All your honey will form smaller crystals equal to your ground stuff. Weird, huh?
After you've creamed all your honey, put some aside as a starter for your next batch.

Any questions, FReep mail me. Creaming is really easy, and the honey stays creamed forever.

37 posted on 09/24/2013 3:13:43 PM PDT by concerned about politics ("Get thee behind me, Liberal")
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To: BenLurkin

I know a woman back in the 70s who used to make “Honey” by boiling sugar and water with clover flowers. I think I still have the receipe somewhere. She was an impoverished never left the land type.


38 posted on 09/24/2013 3:15:55 PM PDT by Chickensoup (...We didn't love freedom enough... Solzhenitsyn.)
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To: DBrow

They hide opium in the combs.


39 posted on 09/24/2013 3:21:13 PM PDT by txhurl ('The DOG ate my homework. That homework, too. ALL my homework. OK?' - POSHITUS)
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To: BenLurkin

All wearing bullet proof vests. We all know how dangerous honey bandits can be. Government out of control again. That is the main take away from this story for me.


40 posted on 09/24/2013 3:39:19 PM PDT by prof.h.mandingo (Buck v. Bell (1927) An idea whose time has come (for extreme liberalism))
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