Honey
Nature’s Nectar Hive to Jar Traceability Case Study
Honey is one of the most adulterated substances in the world. It is estimated that around 30% of honey globally is adulterated, and this contamination is difficult to trace due to missing information about who produced it, when, how, and where. Producers who are creating high quality honey are left out of premium markets as they compete with lower quality or adulterated honey, which is becoming more difficult to identify with standard tests. At the end of the supply-chain, consumers no longer know if the honey they are buying is real, making transparency more and more important in today’s world.
During the 2024 to 2025 Honey Harvest Cycles, we partnered with a leading Social Impact Honey Producer in Zambia - Nature’s Nectar to deploy and pilot a traceability system that captures who produced, harvested and processed the honey- ensuring authenticity, transparency and building consumer trust.
During this project, our joint objective was to trace the honey supply chain and demonstrate their social impact on the ground, with forest conservation and monitoring also being a primary part of their business priorities. To address both of these issues, we implemented an end-to-end blockchain-powered traceability solution with Nature's Nectar, leveraging the Winter Protocol to digitize and verify critical data events. All datasets we received were stored and managed within Palmyra Pro platform to ensure integrated traceability.
Memorable Milestones
Onboarded over 3,000 farmers and 30,000 beehive assets into the system by leveraging existing datasets from Nature's Nectar’s supply chain ecosystem.
Delivered end-to-end traceability across the honey value chain, from hive management, honey purchasing through to processing, quality assurance (QA) and packaging.
Facilitated on-ground training and feedback sessions - getting feedback from testing the system, visiting the farmers and learning about the supply chain with the experts from Nature’s Nectar
Built offline data capture capabilities, enabling farmers in no-internet zones to record and sync data seamlessly once connectivity becomes available.
Enabled SDG monitoring capabilities, linking traceability data directly to sustainability metrics.
Collaborated with the University of Amsterdam (UvA) to analyse datasets and derive insights.
Interesting Insights from the Research with the University of Amsterdam (UvA)
During the April to June 2025 Semester, Nature’s Nectar and zenGate Global collaborated with the UvA’s Business and Economics Faculty to uncover key insights from the existing data. The research leveraged a combination of different methodologies - integrating 3rd party data sets and machine learning techniques on Natures Nectar’s datasets. Here are some key findings that we had:
Confirmed deforestation risk mitigation within beehive sites.
Analysed honey yield based on season and environmental factors and found that temperature, with precipitation and humidity making up 70% of the impact.
Developed an algorithm to identify optimal locations for new beehive sites, to improve hive placement, optimize training, and better understand regional environmental factors
Developed a honey yield prediction algorithm depending on farmer information, with a 60% result accuracy.
Transition into the Post-Pilot Phase
For our future endeavors, we have planned the incorporation of biometric facial authentication to prevent fraud and ensure security of the processes, as well as GPS submission verification, to ensure the systems can verify who and where the data was being submitted from. Going forward, we are transitioning into the post pilot phase and continuing to gather feedback and upgrade the systems.
About Natures Nectar
Nature's Nectar operates with the mission to preserve the native woodland and make the beehives last longer. The company provides beehives made of pine, which are similar to the traditional bark hives - this shift in materials allows for better honey harvest, more community engagement and better conservation efforts
