Selling Honey in the UK: Labelling Rules and What Has to Be on the Jar

The name on the jar

"Honey" is a reserved description: you may only use it if the product meets the compositional rules, and you may add nothing to a product sold as honey. The reserved variants (blossom honey, comb honey, chunk honey, baker's honey) work the same way. A floral name like "Heather Honey" is allowed only when the honey comes wholly or mainly from that source, and a place name like "Sussex Honey" only when it comes entirely from that place.

What legally counts as honey

Schedule 1 of the regulations sets the composition rules. Nothing may be added to honey, not even other food ingredients, and it must not have begun to ferment. The legal moisture limit is 20 percent for most honey (23 percent for heather honey), which is exactly what your refractometer reading is for. The Honey Moisture Calculator turns that reading into a clear answer on whether a batch is legal and safe to bottle.

Net weight, in metric

The net weight of the honey alone, not the jar or lid, declared in grams or kilograms. You can add the imperial figure alongside but the metric must be more prominent. The name of the food and the weight must sit in the same field of vision on the jar. The old prescribed jar sizes are gone: any quantity is legal so long as the declared weight is right.

There are minimum print sizes for the weight figures: 3mm tall for jars between 50g and 200g, 4mm from 200g up to 1kg (which covers the common 227g, 340g and 454g jars) and 6mm above 1kg. For quantity control, the simplest route for a small producer is making sure every jar contains at least the declared weight. The average system with the ℮ mark exists but it brings record keeping obligations you do not need at hobby scale.

Your name and address

The label must carry your name and a physical address where you can be contacted. A website or email alone is not enough. This is the same trace-back requirement every prepacked food in the UK carries.

Best before and the lot number

Prepacked honey needs a best before date. For shelf life over three months, month and year is the minimum, and around two years is the common convention for honey (the duration is your judgement as the producer). Separately, food needs a lot mark, but there is a neat exemption: if your best before date shows at least the day and the month, the date itself counts as the lot mark. Use "best before end November 2027" style dating and you need a separate lot number like L3 on the label.

Country of origin

The country where the honey was harvested must be stated, for example "Origin: UK" or "Product of the UK." Your address on the label does not count as the origin statement, so say it separately. If you only sell honey from your own UK hives, that one line is the whole requirement. Blend wording rules only apply when honeys from different countries are mixed, which a beekeeper bottling their own crop never does. For the record: in England and Wales, blends since 2024 must either list the countries or say "blend of honeys from more than one country," Scotland still permits the older EU and non-EU phrasing, and Northern Ireland follows the EU rule that from June 2026 requires listing each country with its percentage.

Registering with your council

If you sell honey on a regular and organised basis, register as a food business with your local authority at least 28 days before you start trading. It is free, it cannot be refused and it is done through your council's environmental health team or the GOV.UK food business registration service. Selling a handful of jars at the gate may fall under the small quantities exemption for primary producers, but councils interpret that differently, so a quick call to yours is the honest answer. Separately, register your hives on BeeBase with the National Bee Unit if you have not already. That one is about bee health, not food law, and every beekeeper should be on it anyway.

What you do not need

• No nutrition declaration. Honey is a single ingredient unprocessed food and is exempt, and small producers selling direct are exempt on top of that.
• No ingredients list. One ingredient, nothing added, no list. Add anything and it is no longer honey, legally speaking.
• No infant warning. The "not suitable for infants under 12 months" line is a voluntary industry practice, not law. It costs nothing and reads as responsible, so many beekeepers include it anyway.

Common mistakes

• Declaring gross weight. The weight is honey only. Weigh a filled jar, subtract the empty jar and lid.
• A year-only best before with no lot number. The lot mark exemption needs the day and month shown.
• Burying the origin in your address. "Origin: UK" is its own statement.
• Health claims. Nothing about hay fever, antibacterial properties or healing. Food labels may not carry medicinal claims.
• "Raw honey." Not a reserved description, and Trading Standards have challenged it, though a 2024 court ruling allowed one producer to use it. Unsettled ground, so use it with care or skip it.

Check the sources

The two documents worth bookmarking are The Honey (England) Regulations 2015 and the official Trading Standards guidance at Business Companion. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland have their own 2015 regulations with the same substance, and Northern Ireland additionally follows the EU's newer blend origin rules. When in doubt, your local Trading Standards office will answer a labelling question. That is what they are for.