KEY POINTS:
Eating fresh wholemeal bread spread with thick slabs of comb honey from rustic country markets or roadside stalls used to carry a feeling of goodness.
The fact that the honey was relatively unprocessed, natural, made it seem healthy, despite loads of calories.
That image has been fatally damaged by the re-emergence of tutu poisoning.
I would now feel obliged at least to phone the beekeeper before buying the delicacy outside a mainstream shop.
That assumes the beekeeper supplies contact details on the plastic container.
Even if the number is there, will the beekeeper answer the phone? Will he or she know enough about the craft to be able to assure me the golden treat is free of tutin toxin?
It appears the Whangamata hobby beekeeper whose honey is being investigated over the toxin fulfilled the legal requirements of providing contact details on his retail packs, yet he is reportedly unfamiliar with the risk posed by tutu bushes. It is likely that any beekeepers who were unfamiliar last week will have had a crash course in the risk and the mainly self-regulatory system since.
But the issue highlights the difficulty of regulating the kinds of foods sold at farmers markets: home-style bread in paper bags, cheese cut and weighed to order, pickles and jams.
Food premises, including those where comb honey is cut and packaged, are required to hold a council hygiene licence.
Food Safety Authority official Trish Pearce said putting a harvest date on honey packs might help consumers, allowing them to avoid honey produced in the tutu-risk regions from December through to autumn.
"But that relies on consumer knowledge [about the risk period]. The fall-back approach is that if you sell food, it's got to be safe. In terms of honey risk, our approach has been liaison with the industry."
Supermarket honey posed "virtually no risk". But wild honey and the produce of hobby apiarists posed awkward problems.
She said the authority was considering how to manage "wild" foods and their outlets, without over-regulating them.
But it seems likely the authority will now come under increasing pressure to swing back to tighter tutu regulation to protect consumers.
