Labonté Pure & Natural Organic Honey (Brazil) Victoriaville, Quebec, Canada

Labonté honey has been a fixture in Quebec for over 70 years. In 1937 Rolland Labonté started the business in Victoriaville and it has grown into a large, global operation. Jean-Marc Labonté continues the tradition as the current head of the company. Labonté honey offers local Quebecois honey (blueberry, clover, and "pure and natural" which is probably a wild flower mix), and packages and distributes honey from Brazil (eucalyptus and organic pure and natural). You may know them for their "upside down pack no mess" honey bottles. They also produce maple syrup and offer bulk honey. And they aren't kidding when they call it bulk; their bulk containers range in size from 7 kg to 30 kg pails to a 1,400 kg Intermediate Bulk Container (IBC). It is hard for me to imagine the scale of 1,400 kg of honey. I envision a small swimming pool of liquid gold, which isn't too far off (see photo of 1,000 liter IBC containers).

 

1000 liter IBC containers

 Labonté honey also prides itself in its quality assurance program and are HACCP certified (i.e. use the Hazard Analysis Critical Control Point Food Safety Management System), are ECO certified and BIO certified (for their organic products). If you want guarantees that you are getting 100% natural honey, you can't go wrong with Labonté honey.

 

The honey I have is their "pure & natural organic honey" from Brazil. I checked the Labonté honey website to see if there was any more information about the honey-where in Brazil, what the floral was, etc.-but came up empty handed.  Usually if a floral source isn't specified it is a wild flower blend. 

Labonté Pure & Natural organic honey from Brazil

The honey is an amber golden color, very clear and of medium thickness, exactly what you think of when you think of honey. I don't see any particulate matter in it. It has a uniform sweet flavor with a hint of eucalyptus menthol at the end. This makes me think that they may place hives in the border areas around a eucalyptus forest or some batches of their eucalyptus honey have too much pollen from other sources, so it ends up being "pure and natural organic honey" rather than eucalyptus honey.  In my opinion some of the most interesting honey has multiple floral sources. 

 

This is a very good quality, robust honey that will please anyone who likes traditional honey. It is perfect for hot toast, baking or adding to tea or hot cereal.

 

 

Specialty Pure Honey, Kitwe, Zambia

This honey comes from Zambia. My friend Lauren traveled to Africa this summer and brought it back. The label states it is distributed by Specialty Foods LTD out of Kitwe. Specialty Foods is a private sector honey buyer that processes, packs and distributes honey to wholesalers and large supermarkets.

An online search (http://www.cifor.cgiar.org/publications/pdf_files/livebrief/livebrief0801.pdf)suggests that most honey production in Zambia occurs in rural, farm areas in the Northwestern Province, and that the honey sources of most Zambian honey are woodlands and forests, notably Brachystegia, Julbernardia and Isoberlinia. Given this link between forests and honey, beekeeping is thought to promote incentives for sustainable forestry. Deforestation is a major threat to honey production.

Honey production was noted as early as the 1850s in Zambia in David Livingstone's journals (of 'Dr. Livingstone, I presume?' fame). He described traditional log and bark hives, which are suspended from branches. These are being replaced by more efficient types of hives (e.g. Kenyan top bar hives, which resemble the hive boxes that I'm familiar with). Mud hives are also used. Given how and where honey is collected in Zambia, it is considered to be organic.

Honey, prior to being commercially traded, was mostly used to brew a honey-beer called mbote (which remains a popular drink).

One thing I learned, and never knew before, is that apart from honey bees (the indigenous African honey bee in the case of Zambia) there is another insect known as a 'stingless bee' that also produces a honey-like substance. This is generally not exported, though.

This Zambian honey is a warm, dark, amber color. It is clear and has a runny consistency. It is not too sweet with an incredibly interesting, complicated smoky flavor. The final taste is medium robust with smoky undertones. What a great honey! I think it might be nice on buttered bread or in plain yoghurt. It might change the taste of tea a little too much, unless it was a smoky tea.

I suspect it may be hard to find except in Zambia.