How is honey graded?
Buying honeyReviewed 2026-08-02
Short answerIt depends
There is no single system. The USDA grades honey on clarity, flavour, moisture and freedom from defects — and it is voluntary. Colour is graded separately on the Pfund scale. The EU sets compositional limits rather than grades. And premium ratings like UMF measure one chemical and nothing else.
Where the belief comes from
Grade A on a jar sounds like a quality tier in a regulated hierarchy. It is a voluntary US classification that a great many perfectly good honeys have never been assessed against.
The systems that exist
| System | What it grades | Force |
|---|---|---|
| USDA grades (A, B, C, Substandard) | Water content, flavour and aroma, absence of defects, clarity | Voluntary. A producer pays for inspection or does not; most do not |
| Pfund colour scale | Colour only, in millimetres, from water white through to dark amber | An instrument measurement, not a quality judgement |
| EU honey directive and Codex standard | Compositional limits: moisture, sugars, HMF, diastase, conductivity for the honeydew boundary | Regulatory. Honey outside them cannot legally be sold as honey |
| UMF, MGO and similar | One chemical marker in one honey type | Private certification. UMF is licensed and audited; a bare number is not |
What a grade does not tell you
- Whether it tastes good. USDA grading rewards clarity and absence of defect, which pushes towards filtered, uniform honey — a raw unfiltered honey with pollen in it can grade lower and be far more interesting.
- Whether it is authentic. Grading assumes the jar contains honey. Adulteration is a separate problem addressed by isotope and NMR testing, not by grading.
- Whether it is a monofloral. Nothing in a USDA grade speaks to floral source.
- Whether it is raw. There is no grading dimension for processing.
Sources
- United States Standards for Grades of Extracted Honey — United States Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Marketing Service · Standards document
- Council Directive 2001/110/EC relating to honey — Council of the European Union (2001) · Regulatory guidance Link
- Standard for Honey (CXS 12-1981) — Codex Alimentarius Commission, FAO/WHO (1981) · Standards document Link
How sources are selected and weighted is set out in the sources and evidence policy.
Work it out for yourself
- Honey finder
Which honey should I buy for what I actually want to do with it?
- Honey comparison
How do these honeys actually differ, beyond colour?
- Flavour selector
I like this taste — which honeys have it?