Japanese authorities have rejected four shipments of New Zealand honey since more stringent testing was introduced for the weed killer glyphosate in January.

The Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) introduced mandatory testing for all honey headed to Japan from January 20 in response to concerns about glyphosate levels following random testing in Japan, which prompted authorities there to start testing all New Zealand honey at the border.

Some honey was already en-route when the more stringent testing was introduced, and variability in testing between international laboratories has also caught out some producers.

Shipments of honey from Taranaki’s award-winning Egmont Honey, Northland’s organic producer Mills Farm, and Timaru’s 100 per cent Pure New Zealand Honey were rejected by Japan in February. The three companies confirmed they authorised the disposal of their honey in Japan.

A further shipment through Kansai Airport was rejected by Japanese authorities as recently as March, according to a list of food violations published by Japan’s Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare.

The document names the manufacturer of the mānuka honey as New Zealand’s Midland Aparies. There is no record of Midland Aparies on the official Companies Register.

Doug McIntyre, general manager of the similarly named Midlands Apiaries, which markets glyphosate-free Puriti honey, said the company did not airfreight any product to Kansai Airport this year and the Japanese importer Oji Foods was not one of its customers.

He said he is working with MPI to try and figure out what is going on.

Glyphosate is the active ingredient in products like Round-Up. Japanese authorities have warned MPI that if 5 per cent of imported honey exceeds its glyphosate limit, it will stop our honey exports to Japan. That trade was worth $71 million last year, double the value of 2019, according to Stats NZ.

Honey manufacturers point to Japan’s low standard for glyphosate, at no more than 0.01 parts per million, considered the detectable level, compared with New Zealand’s regulation of 0.1ppm and the European Union standard of 0.05ppm.

They say that is because Japan does not have a separate classification for honey, but lumps it in the default “others” category in the rules. By contrast, the specified Japanese limit for flour, rye and buckwheat is 30ppm, corn is 5ppm and most of the commonly eaten vegetables such as potatoes, cabbage, broccoli, lettuce and carrots is 0.2ppm.

The New Zealand exporters whose honey was rejected were all within the New Zealand standard.

Despite its widespread use around the world, glyphosate is controversial. The International Agency for Research on Cancer classified it as probably carcinogenic to humans. New Zealand Food Safety, in line with the Food and Agriculture Organisation and World Health Organisation joint meeting on pesticide residues, considers that the levels of current dietary exposure to glyphosate do not present a cancer risk.

Apiculture New Zealand notes that a five-year-old child consuming honey at New Zealand’s maximum allowable level would need to eat about 230 kilograms of honey every day to reach the World Health Organisation acceptable daily intake for glyphosate.

Sean Goodwin, chief executive of 100 per cent Pure New Zealand Honey, said Japanese and New Zealand officials are in talks on the issue, and he is hopeful Japanese authorities may amend their standards, although he is committed to meeting the current standard.

“It’s disappointing for us as a brand,” he said. “We have got a number of distributors in Japan and you can understand they are concerned about it.”

His affected product was wildflower honey in a couple of pails totalling about 50kg that was to be used for soaps and other products. The Japanese test for glyphosate showed 0.02ppm.

Until about a month ago, New Zealand laboratories were not capable of testing glyphosate at a low enough level to avoid the potential for manufacturers getting caught out by variability in testing between international laboratories.

Hill Laboratories in Hamilton confirmed that labs previously couldn’t test below 0.01ppm, but are now able to test to as low as 0.004ppm, which allows manufacturers to take into account a margin of error which can be 30 per cent or more at such low levels of detection.

Now that the improved test was available, manufacturers should ensure they did not send any honey that could be at risk of breaching the limit, Goodwin said.

“We are doing all we can with the labs, and we are certainly grateful that they have responded very quickly with a significant improvement in testing capability,” he said.

“We now know how much lower than the limit the honey actually is and therefore whether it poses a risk to send it or not.”

An MPI spokeswoman confirmed “there is an inherent variability in the testing for glyphosate in honey” and said they were in talks with Japanese officials on the issue.

Egmont Honey chief executive James Annabell said his affected product was 300 jars of creamy clover honey. The Japanese test for glyphosate showed 0.06ppm.

The company tests its honey for glyphosate and had never before been in breach of the rules, he said. The Japanese market was important to the company, and its honey was now tested using the new Japanese standard test, he said.

Mills Farm, which produces a range of certified organic bee products, had mānuka honey with a glyphosate level of 0.02ppm rejected at Narita Airport.

MPI has received requests for two consignments of honey to be returned to New Zealand from Japan, representing about 1kg of honey, however it has not received the right documentation to give it confidence the honey was held under official control to allow it to be returned here under our biosecurity rules.

“We’re working through options with the New Zealand exporters, which includes providing further information or redirecting the honey to other markets,” the spokeswoman said.

Some honey exporters who had not yet been named but were concerned about potentially breaching the Japanese levels were trying to get their honey back, industry sources said.

The threat to the Japanese honey trade came after 912kg of honey packed by Nelson company G & K Davis was rejected by Japanese authorities in January after it was found to have a glyphosate level of 0.08ppm.

Jude Atkins, from Bee Products NZ, which is linked to G & K Davis, said the honey was packed for a client whose details she couldn’t disclose.

Prior to this, a shipment of mānuka honey from Manuka Doctor was rejected in November last year, with a reading of 0.02ppm.

Goodwin said how glyphosate got into honey was the bigger issue, and beekeepers, farmers and councils should be mindful of the use of glyphosate sprays.