Qualitative evaluation of two groups of bulk and packaged natural polyfloral honey

Honey is a highly nutritious foodstuff with medicinal properties. Due to the high price of natural honey and its high nutritional value, producing similar high sugar concentration syrups has become a common act of making adulterated honey. Increasing awareness of food safety and producing a healthy food and free from external substances for consumers, has shown the growing importance recently. In order to assess the quality of bulk and packaged nectar honeys, 11 samples gathered from different sources. Physicochemical properties of the samples including moisture content, diastase, pH, free acidity, hydroxyl methyl furfural (HMF), total ash content, total sugar content, fructose to glucose ratio, sucrose, insoluble solids and electrical conductivity were measured according to Institute of Standards and Industrial Research of IRAN (No. 92, Honey, properties and experimental methods. 6th Revision). Statistical analysis, t-test, showed that the applied thermal process in packaging of honey had no effect on the physicochemical properties of two groups of bulk and packaged natural poly-floral honey. Also there was no significant difference between diastase and HMF for two groups of honey.