Mad honey, honey containing grayanotoxins from Rhododendron species, is legal in Australia. No Australian or trans-Tasman instrument names mad honey, grayanotoxin or Rhododendron, and the product is assessed as ordinary food.
The more informative part of the Australian position is not the absence of a rule but the presence of a closely comparable one. The Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code already sets a maximum level for a plant toxin in honey. It has simply never set one for grayanotoxin. The machinery for regulating exactly this kind of problem exists, has been used once, and has not been applied here.
- Mad honey is lawful in Australia and is assessed as ordinary food under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code.
- Schedule 19 of the Code sets a maximum level for tutin in honey of 0.7 mg/kg. It contains no entry for grayanotoxin.
- Schedule 23 lists Kalmia latifolia, another plant of the heath family that contains grayanotoxins, as a prohibited plant. It does not list Rhododendron.
- Travellers may bring honey into most states and territories, subject to inspection by a biosecurity officer. Western Australia applies additional requirements.
- No statement naming mad honey or grayanotoxin was found from FSANZ, the TGA or the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
Contents
Legal classification
Australia classifies mad honey as a food. It is regulated under the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code like any other honey, with no separate category and no authorisation specific to grayanotoxin content.
Grayanotoxin is not a scheduled poison. The Therapeutic Goods (Poisons Standard, June 2026) Instrument 2026, F2026L00633, runs to 674 pages and mentions no grayanotoxin, Rhododendron, andromedotoxin, or Kalmia. Nothing in the therapeutic goods framework therefore reaches the compound or the plants that produce it.
The classification question in Australia consequently turns entirely on food law, and within food law on two schedules of the Code that approach the problem from different directions.
Governing instrument
Two schedules of the Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code address mad honey, and the gap between what each covers is the substance of the Australian position.
Schedule 19 and the tutin precedent
Schedule 19 of the Code, F2015L00454, sets maximum levels of contaminants and natural toxicants in food. It is the instrument through which a naturally occurring plant toxin in food is limited.
Schedule 19 sets a maximum level of 0.7 mg/kg for tutin in honey. A note within it records that the New Zealand Food (Tutin in Honey) Standard 2010 also regulates honey beekeepers, packers and exporters in New Zealand. Tutin is a plant toxin that enters honey by the same general route as grayanotoxin: bees forage on a toxic plant, and the regulators of the Australian and New Zealand food supply have addressed it with a numeric limit.
Schedule 19 contains no entry for grayanotoxin, for Rhododendron, or for andromedotoxin, the older name for the same family of compounds. The Code has demonstrated both the capacity and the willingness to set a maximum level for a naturally occurring toxin in honey. It has not done so for this one.
| Natural toxicant in honey | Entry in Schedule 19 | Maximum level set |
| Tutin | Yes | 0.7 mg/kg |
| Grayanotoxin | No entry | None |
| Andromedotoxin, the older name for grayanotoxins | No entry | None |
Schedule 23 and the plant that is listed
Schedule 23 of the Code, F2015L00435, lists prohibited plants and fungi. It lists Kalmia latifolia, known as calico bush or mountain laurel. Kalmia latifolia belongs to the heath family, Ericaceae, and contains grayanotoxins (Jansen et al. 2012).
Schedule 23 does not list Rhododendron, which is the genus from which almost all mad honey derives.
The Code therefore prohibits one grayanotoxin-bearing plant while leaving unlisted the genus that is the principal source of grayanotoxin-containing honey worldwide. No published reasoning for that distinction was located, and the practical consequence is that the prohibition captures a plant rarely associated with commercial honey while the species actually involved fall outside it.
| Plant | Contains grayanotoxins | Listed in Schedule 23 |
| Kalmia latifolia, calico bush or mountain laurel | Yes, Jansen et al. 2012 | Yes |
| Rhododendron species, the principal mad honey source | Yes | No |
The two layers that exist for tutin and not for grayanotoxin
The Food Standards Code is a joint instrument covering Australia and New Zealand, and the tutin entry shows what a fully addressed honey toxin looks like across that shared system. Schedule 19 sets the maximum level, and the note records that the New Zealand Food (Tutin in Honey) Standard 2010 separately regulates honey beekeepers, packers, and exporters in New Zealand. One instrument fixes the permitted concentration and another governs the people who produce and handle the honey.
For grayanotoxin, neither layer exists. Schedule 19 sets no maximum level, and no corresponding operational standard was found. The contrast is not between a regulated toxin and an unregulated one in the abstract. It is between a toxin addressed twice over and a toxin addressed nowhere.
How a prohibited plant is defined
The definition of a prohibited plant or fungus, as printed with Standard 1.4.4, F2015L00416, has three limbs. Paragraph (a) covers a plant or fungus listed in Schedule 23. Paragraph (b) covers a part or a derivative of such a plant or fungus. Paragraph (c) covers a substance derived from a plant, fungus, part or derivative referred to in paragraph (a) or (b).
Standard 1.4.4-3 provides separately that a restricted plant may be used as an ingredient only if it complies with the natural toxicant requirements in section 1.4.1-3 and S19-6(1).
That cross-reference is worth following, because it reveals the same gap from a different direction. The condition attached to using a restricted plant is compliance with the natural toxicant requirements, which are set out in Schedule 19. Because Schedule 19 contains no entry for grayanotoxin, the cross-reference has nothing to point to in this case. A requirement to comply with a limit is empty when no limit has been set.
Whether honey produced from Kalmia nectar would fall within paragraph (c), as a substance derived from a listed plant, has not been tested. It is set out under what is not established below rather than stated as a rule, because no determination on the point was located.
Import and customs
Honey may be brought into Australia, and the controls that apply are biosecurity controls rather than toxin controls.
The Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry states in its guidance on bringing or mailing goods to Australia that honey products are permitted into most Australian states and territories. A biosecurity officer must inspect honey products on arrival to confirm they are free from contamination. Items that do not meet these conditions will be exported or destroyed at the importer’s expense.
Western Australia applies a higher quarantine status for bees and bee products and has its own state entry requirements. Those requirements also apply to passengers who travel on to Western Australia domestically, so clearing the national border does not complete the process for someone continuing to that state.
This inspection regime protects Australian bee populations from disease and pests. Nothing in it assesses grayanotoxin content, and a consignment of honey carrying any concentration of grayanotoxin would be assessed against the same contamination criteria as any other honey.
Enforcement record
Searches conducted on 7 October 2026 found no statement naming mad honey or grayanotoxin from Food Standards Australia New Zealand, the Therapeutic Goods Administration, or the Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.
No Australian poisoning case involving mad honey was found. The clinical literature on grayanotoxin poisoning is concentrated in the producing regions, and no Australian presentation was found while preparing this page.
The absence of located material is not proof that nothing exists. It establishes that no advisory, determination or case was found, which is a narrower statement.
What legal does not mean
Classification as ordinary food is a statement about regulatory status rather than about physiological effect. Grayanotoxin is a sodium channel toxin. It binds voltage-gated sodium channels and holds them open, producing dose-dependent effects on heart rate and blood pressure, and it is not a psychedelic.
The absence of an Australian limit means no ceiling applies to how much grayanotoxin a lawfully sold honey may contain. For comparison, the EFSA CONTAM Panel concluded in 2023 that concentrations of 1 mg/kg and 10 mg/kg of grayanotoxin I and III combined in honey raise health concerns for acute toxicity. That is a European scientific opinion with no standing in Australian law, and it is offered here only to indicate the concentrations at which an expert body has identified concern. Australia has set no equivalent figure.
Concentration determines the effect, and you cannot judge it from the jar. It varies between batches of honey for reasons unrelated to how the honey is described or sold, so two jars with the same label can differ substantially in what they contain. The CMHI concentration risk bands set out how measured concentrations are classified.
The biosecurity inspection described above does not close this gap either. A consignment that satisfies a biosecurity officer that it is free from contamination demonstrates something about bee health and the absence of foreign matter. It has demonstrated nothing about grayanotoxin, because that is not what the inspection examines.
What is not established
Whether honey produced from the nectar of Kalmia latifolia would constitute a substance derived from a prohibited plant within paragraph (c) of the definition. No determination on this question was located, and it is an open question rather than a rule.
The wording of the state and territory Food Acts on selling unsafe food. Those Acts were not read for this page, and any reliance on them should quote the relevant section from the Act itself.
The commercial import conditions for honey in the Biosecurity Import Conditions system. The traveller guidance described above addresses personal imports and does not describe the conditions applying to commercial consignments.
Whether any Australian poisoning case exists. None was found.
Why Schedule 23 lists Kalmia latifolia and not Rhododendron. No published reasoning was located.
Key points
Mad honey is lawful in Australia and is assessed as ordinary food. No instrument in the Food Standards Code, and nothing in the June 2026 Poisons Standard, names mad honey, grayanotoxin, Rhododendron, or andromedotoxin.
The Code regulates one naturally occurring plant toxin in honey, setting tutin at a maximum of 0.7 mg/kg in Schedule 19, and sets nothing for grayanotoxin. Schedule 23 prohibits Kalmia latifolia, a grayanotoxin-bearing plant, but does not list Rhododendron, the genus from which mad honey derives. Whether honey from a listed plant would itself fall under the definition of a prohibited plant has not been tested.
Travellers may bring honey into most states and territories, subject to biosecurity inspection, with Western Australia applying additional requirements for travellers moving there domestically. Those controls address contamination and bee biosecurity, not toxin content. No Australian advisory, determination, or poisoning case was found.
Sources
- Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, Schedule 19, maximum levels of contaminants and natural toxicants, F2015L00454.
- Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, Schedule 23, prohibited plants and fungi, F2015L00435.
- Australia New Zealand Food Standards Code, Standard 1.4.4, F2015L00416.
- Therapeutic Goods (Poisons Standard, June 2026) Instrument 2026, F2026L00633.
- Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, bringing or mailing goods to Australia.
- Jansen SA, et al. Cardiovascular Toxicology 2012;12(3):208-215.
- EFSA CONTAM Panel, risks for human health related to the presence of grayanotoxins in certain honey, EFSA Journal 2023;21(3):7866.
