GOURMET honey lovers worldwide are being protected from fraud by a group of York scientists.

Experts have found how to use sweet chestnut trees at Castle Howard's arboretum to help prove the authenticity of honey from Corsica.

They can use DNA from the trees to confirm the origin of Corsican honey, so that consumers can be sure they are eating the genuine product.

Fraud in international food supply chains is a growing problem, and manufacturers are looking to develop ways of checking that a product is what it says on the label.

One batch of honey can look much the same as any other to the consumer, and this means that premium products can be replaced by cheaper material and still sold for a high price.

A 250g jar of Corsican honey, created by unique Corsican bees under strict quality controls, can cost more than £4. Supermarket brands in the UK cost less than half that price.

Specialists at the Central Science Laboratory (CSL), near Sand Hutton, York, are working to combat this sort of fraud in a number of foods such as fish, meat, rice, tea and coffee. They are leading the largest-ever European project on food authenticity. The project, TRACE, aims to produce low-cost and reliable methods of confirming the identity of a wide range of foods.

Bees on the Mediterranean island forage on sweet chestnut trees similar to those growing in the arboretum at Castle Howard, and the honey they produce contains traces of sweet chestnut pollen.

By purifying DNA from pollen collected from the honey, and comparing it to DNA from sweet chestnut pollen, scientists can prove the honey is Corsican.

Dr Hez Hird, of the CSL, said: "Finding sweet chestnut trees of the right species in the arboretum has made it easy for us to collect pollen and to produce the DNA fingerprint we need to check the honey.

"We are very grateful for the assistance of the Arboretum Trust at Castle Howard, without which we would have had to travel to Corsica."

The CSL is part of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs and employs more than 700 people.

The Castle Howard Arboretum Trust, a registered charity, was founded in 1997 by the Royal Botanic Gardens and Castle Howard Estate to secure the future of a remarkable collection of trees and shrubs.

Updated: 11:34 Thursday, August 18, 2005