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Top honey brands fail international quality test
KOLKATA: Among top honey brands in India, majority have failed to make it through a stringent quality test. According to the Centre for Science and Environment (CSE), brands including Dabur, Patanjali, Emami have flunked the Nuclear Magnetic Resonance (NMR) test that was carried out at a lab in Germany, bringing focus on the adulteration of packaged honey in Indian markets.
Food researchers at CSE selected 13 top brands and some smaller brands that sell processed and raw honey in India to check their purity. The researchers found that 77 per cent of the samples were adulterated with sugar syrup. Out of the 22 samples that were checked, only five passed all the tests.
Marico’s Saffola Honey has cleared the litmus along with two other brands – Markfed Sohna and Nature's Nectar. However, Dabur has already countered saying its honey has passed NMR test. For the record, the NMR test is required only for exporting honey, and not for local marketing in India.
After the report was released, Dabur has categorically stated that its honey is not adulterated with sugar syrup. “Dabur is the only company in India to have an NMR testing equipment in our own laboratory, and the same is used to regularly test our honey being sold in the Indian market. This is to ensure that Dabur Honey is 100 per cent pure without any adulteration,” it said in a statement.
On the other hand, Patanjali Ayurved MD Acharya Balkrishna claimed that the CSE report is an attempt to downplay Indian honey and promote German technology. An Emami spokesperson also said that its Zandu Pure Honey conforms to all the protocols during production and adheres to quality norms and standards.
“It is a food fraud more nefarious and sophisticated than what we found in our 2003 and 2006 investigations into soft drinks; more damaging to our health than perhaps anything that we have found till now – keeping in mind the fact that we are still fighting against a killer Covid2019 pandemic with our backs to the wall. This overuse of sugar in our diet will make it worse," Centre for Science and Environment (CSE) director general Sunita Narain said.
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Coca-Cola appoints Tapaswee Chandele as Global Chief People Officer
Succeeds Lisa Chang from May 1, reports to CEO Henrique Braun
MUMBAI- When leadership refreshes, culture often follows and The Coca-Cola Company is pouring a new mix into its global people strategy. The company has appointed Tapaswee Chandele as its Global Chief People Officer, marking a key transition in its human resources leadership as long-time executive Lisa Chang steps down after seven years in the role.
The appointment, effective May 1, positions Chandele at the helm of Coca-Cola’s global people agenda at a time when multinational organisations are rethinking talent, culture and leadership pipelines in an increasingly hybrid and competitive workforce landscape.
In her new role, she will report to chief executive officer Henrique Braun, signalling the strategic importance of HR within the company’s top leadership structure.
Chandele brings over two decades of institutional knowledge to the role. She currently serves as senior vice president and executive assistant to president and chief financial officer John Murphy, a position she has held since May 2025, placing her at the centre of the company’s financial and operational decision-making. Prior to this, she spent six years, from 2019 to 2025, as senior vice president of global talent, development and HR system partnerships, where she led Coca-Cola’s worldwide talent strategy and worked closely within Chang’s leadership team.
Her journey with Coca-Cola began in 2001 in India, and over the years she has built a cross-market perspective through roles spanning human resources and talent development. Her international assignments across Turkiye and South Africa, followed by a relocation to the United States in 2017, reflect a career shaped by both geographic and functional diversity, an increasingly critical trait for global leadership roles.
The transition also marks the end of Lisa Chang’s seven-year tenure, during which she played a central role in shaping Coca-Cola’s global people practices through a period defined by organisational transformation and evolving workforce expectations.
Chandele’s elevation comes at a time when HR is no longer a back-office function but a strategic driver of growth, culture and resilience. As Coca-Cola looks ahead, the focus will likely be on aligning talent strategy with business agility ensuring that the people behind the brand remain as globally adaptive as the product itself.
