To Start Reading Their Labels @ (NAPSA)—Every day, Binford Weaver tends to his bees. It’s his livelihood.It’s also the livelihood of his son Danny and wife Bennie Lou. The Weaver’s company, B. Weaver Apiaries located in Navasota, Texas, had its start in 1888 when Zacharias Weaver and his new bride Florence received 10 hives as a wedding present. Zacharias was a farmer and merchant, but immediately took a great interest in bees and rapidly made them his main sourceof livelihood. Today, the business is operated by the 4th and 5th generations of the family. The Weavers proudly specialize in the production of 100 percent pure honey to serve customers across the country. But today’s honey business isn’t the same business as it was when Binford’s grandfather Zacharias received his first 10 hives. Many consumers are paying closer attention to the labels on their food. What consumers may not be doing, however, is reading labels to see what’s missing from the ingredientlist. According to a newly released national study of 400 household primary shoppers, conducted by the National Honey Board, virtually all consumers, when presented with a product with the word honeyin its name, expect the product to not only actually contain honey, but also use honey as the primary sweetener. That means manyare completely unaware that numerous products containing the word honey in their names not only do not have honeyas the primary sweetener, but they may not use honey altogether. “Using the word honey in a product’s namenot only invokes a sense of purity and natural goodness, it also leads buyers to believe that the product is using honey as its primary sweetener,” said Bruce Wolk, director of mar- keting for the National Honey Board. “For consumers to then read the label, and find honey missing from or at the tail end of an ingredientlist, is a violation of consumertrust.” To help avoid confusion when purchasing products with the word honey in the title, consumers should review ingredient labels to determineif honeyis actually being used as a primary sweetener. Ingredient lists include nutrients and other ingredients used to formulate the product, in decreasing order by weight. If honeyis notlisted at all or is listed toward the endof the ingredientlist, after other sweeteners, consumers should be aware that the product is not necessarily using honey as the primary sweetener and any real or perceived benefit associated with pure and natural honey maynotbe present in the product. Beekeepers, like the Weavers, have worked incredibly hard for many generations to harvest and produce the pure, high-quality honey that consumers trust and love. To learn more about this issue or to find out more about honey, go to www.honey.com.
