A jar of pure honey needs less on its label than most foods: the name "honey", the net weight, and your name and address. FDA's honey guidance says honey alone is named honey, and since it's a single ingredient, it needs no ingredient list. You may add the flower, "clover honey", "orange blossom honey", "wildflower honey", only if you can support that it's the chief floral source; you don't have to name one at all. Everything else changes the name. Honey mixed with another sweetener can't be called honey: it's a "blend of honey and corn syrup", or "blend of corn syrup and honey" if there's more syrup, with an ingredient list. Honey with a flavor is named for it, like "raspberry-flavored honey". And honey with an added ingredient, cinnamon in creamed honey or chili in hot honey, needs a name that says so and an ingredient list. The address follows the general rule: the business's name and its city, state and ZIP, with "Distributed by" or "Packed for" if someone else packed it. States add their own honey rules, and nutrition labeling has small business exemptions. In the example below, a Texas beekeeper checks six labels. Below are the rules, the example, and a free checker.
The short version
- Pure honey: name it "honey"; no ingredient list needed.
- Clover, wildflower or orange blossom only if it's the chief floral source, and you can support it.
- Honey plus sugar or syrup: "blend of honey and…", the larger first, with ingredients.
- Flavored honey: named for the flavor, like "raspberry-flavored honey".
- Added cinnamon or chili: a name that says so, and an ingredient list.
- Every label: net weight, and your name, city, state and ZIP.
- States add honey rules; small producers are often exempt from Nutrition Facts.
- TaroStack keeps each harvest as a lot, so a jar leads back to its hives. More below.
The rules
| Rule | Where |
|---|---|
| The name | Honey alone is named "honey"; no ingredient statement for a single-ingredient food (FDA honey guidance, 2018) |
| Floral source | Optional; allowed when the plant or blossom named is the chief floral source and you can support it; truthful (FDA honey guidance) |
| Blends | Honey with another sweetener isn't "honey": "blend of honey and corn syrup", the larger first, with each ingredient listed by weight (FDA honey guidance) |
| Flavored honey | Named with the characterizing flavor, e.g. "raspberry-flavored honey"; ingredients listed (FDA honey guidance) |
| Who made it | Name and place of business; "Distributed by" or similar if you didn't pack it; street address, city, state, ZIP (21 CFR 101.5) |
| Other requirements | Net weight and nutrition labeling apply as for other foods (FDA honey guidance) |
Texas's own honey rules, including mixtures, are in license to sell honey, the net weight in net weight labeling requirements, and the Nutrition Facts exemptions in nutrition label small business exemption. This is general information, not legal advice.
An example: a Texas Hill Country beekeeper
Pedernales Apiary, the made-up beekeeper in Johnson City, Texas, I use in these examples, runs 60 hives and checked six labels before a print run:
| Product | Name it can carry | Ingredient list | Fix |
|---|---|---|---|
| Raw wildflower honey, 12 oz | Wildflower honey | No | Ready |
| Mesquite honey, 12 oz | Honey, unless mesquite is supported as the chief source | No | Support it or drop "mesquite" |
| Comb honey, 10 oz | Comb honey | No | Ready |
| Cinnamon creamed honey, 8 oz | Creamed honey with cinnamon | Honey, cinnamon | Ready |
| Hot honey, 8 oz | Honey with chili peppers | Honey, chili peppers | Add the net weight |
| A shop's request for cheaper "honey" | Blend of honey and corn syrup | Honey, corn syrup | Declined |
The mesquite jars come from one apiary near a mesquite stand, but the beekeeper has nothing showing mesquite was the chief source, so those jars say "honey" until a pollen analysis or a clear bloom record backs the name. The hot honey label was missing its net weight. A shop asked for a cheaper honey cut with syrup; it would have to be labeled a blend, and the apiary passed. What hot honey costs to make is in hot honey business plan.
Get the checker
Download the honey label checker. One sheet: for each product, whether it's only honey, any other sweetener and which there's more of, any flavor or added ingredient, the floral source and whether it's supported, and the net weight; the name it can carry, whether it needs an ingredient list and what to fix fill in. It's an ordinary Excel file with no macros, and it works in Google Sheets, LibreOffice and Numbers.
Where this stops working
A label is the same on every jar. What's in the jar isn't: each harvest comes from different hives and a different bloom, and when a shop asks where a jar came from, the label doesn't know.
How TaroStack does it
TaroStack keeps each harvest as a lot, so a jar leads back to its hives and its date.
Each harvest a lot. Each extraction goes into stock as a lot with its date, and fields of your own on the lot can hold the apiary and the bloom, the record behind a floral name.
Jars from the lot. Bottling is a batch that takes honey from the harvest lot and jars and labels from stock, so each jar's lot records the harvest it came from.
Where it went. Each shop's order records the lots it got, so if a shop asks, or a jar has to come back, one report shows which harvest went where.
| The job | Notebook | In TaroStack |
|---|---|---|
| Which harvest is in a jar | A date on the bucket | The jar's lot |
| The record behind "wildflower" | Memory | A field on the harvest lot |
| Jars and labels for a run | Counted by hand | Taken off by the bottling batch |
| Which shops got a harvest | Invoices | One report, lot to customer |
Lots, batches, your own fields and recalls are on every plan, from $49 a month. The first 30 days are free, with no credit card. If you'd like a hand setting up, ask, and we'll do it with you.