M&M-colored Honey

When a baby is just born, he or she only see shades of black and white, or so they say. As the little bundle of joy grows bigger, it gets attracted to more vibrant hues. When schooling starts, one of the most important lessons taught to him or her is the different colors.

This only displays how important color is in our lives. The same thing goes for food. The more variety of colors there is, the more it is pleasing to the eyes, more appealing. That is the reason why a lot of food manufacturing companies maximize this phenomenon. This is especially true with the candy brands.

Imagine how successful the use of color has been for M&M’s. They don’t just cater to the children, but also those who are young at heart.

You can enjoy those tiny bits of color coated chocolates right into your mouth. You can grab a random handful or choose specific colors, your call, but turns out that these colorful treats are not seen as pleasing to the beekeepers of France.

France is the largest producer and supplier of honey in all of Europe. Annually, it is estimated that they generate around 18,330 tons of honey. Sweet, eh?

Based on the Alsace chamber of agriculture, there are roughly 2,400 beekeepers in their specific region that tends 35,000 colonies, producing approximately 1,000 tons of honey a year.

August of last year, about a dozen or so of the Alsace area beekeepers began to notice that the honey produced by their bees became bluish and greenish!

Following an investigation, they discovered that is was because of a biogas plant of an M&M factory located around the area. The bees have been eating the residues and this contributed to the colorful end result of their honey.

According to Alain Frieh who is the president of the Apiculturists’ Union, this situation is actually a problem. Despite the attractive look and the honey-like taste, the product is not salable.

What a bummer, right? Perhaps they should add more color and ship it to the U.S.  Strangely-colored ketchup was all the rage a few years ago, neon-blue honey sounds just as good!