In a recent “Global Market Honey” report by Mordor Intelligence, the market research firm notes that the honey market size was valued at $11.56 billion in 2025, and expected to reach $14.98 billion by 2030, growing at a compound annual growth rate of 5.32%. 

Yet honey’s market size isn’t the only facet that makes this ingredient so magical, according to the National Honey Board (NHB). 

During its first Honey R&D Summit of the year, which took place online Jan. 27, Keith Seiz, ingredient marketing representative for NHB, pointed out that honey is not just a typical sweetener, but a functional dynamo.

“Whenever we think about honey as an ingredient, we have to kind of think about something that is more than just something that’s used in a product,” he says. “If you look at all the ingredients that you use in your products, all of them will have some kind of story but very few of them will have a story like honey.

“Yes, honey is a great sweetener,” Seiz continues. “But whenever we talk about honey, we’re not only talking about a sweetener, we’re talking about its functional role in products.”

Using the example of ready-to-drink (RTD) coffee, specifically Bee Keeper Coffee, Seiz highlights honey’s unique characteristics and what the ingredient can bring to beverage formulations.

“[I]n this product right here, it’s your kind of typical coffee sweetened with caramel as well as honey,” he notes. “So why honey works in a product like this and why it’s unique is yes, it adds that unique flavor but it also is contributing dissolved solids. … [W]hat that means is it’s going to give it some sort of mouthfeel. It’s going to make the drink feel more rounded and substantial.”

Seiz notes that beyond coffee drinks the board has been working on other non-alcohol offerings.

“Honey will give you something that kind of echoes a full alcohol drink, but since it’s the honey, that’s what’s providing the body,” he says. “So, in this one, it’s doing the same. It’s providing that more mouthfeel of the product. It’s also kind of helping modulate the bitterness as well as giving a flavor.” 

Seiz further notes that what is interesting about honey is its unique composition — more than 25 sugars, low water activity and pH 3.9 — enabling it to bind, retain moisture, reduce bitterness and brighten flavors
Aside from honey’s functional properties, Seiz points to the ingredient’s popularity among food and beverage manufacturers and consumers alike — not overlooking its marketing benefits. 

“For starters, it’s one of the most favorite ingredients across the food industry,” he says. “It’s a sweetener that parents love, kids love.”

Noting stats from 2024, Seiz adds that honey grew at a rate two times faster than the food industry as a whole. As far as consumption goes, he also noted that “honey appears on 60% of menus, so whenever you’re going out to eat, honey is everywhere.” 

“If we look at per capita honey consumption, this is, you know, what honey consumption is at home, it increased 25% in 2024,” Seiz explains. “So, this is an ingredient that’s been around for thousands and thousands of years, and year-over-year growth was 25%. That’s pretty shocking. In food and beverage products, we saw a 15.3% increase in new products made with honey. … [I]n 2024, there were 1,366 new products with honey.” 

Noting that he just ran the numbers for 2025 and hasn’t done a full analysis yet, Seiz estimated that new products grew even more than the previous year. 

New products with honey were approximately 1,500, he says.

Adding that honey’s inclusion spans many categories, Seiz looks to answer why this legacy ingredient has seen such strong growth.

“If you look at that beehive, this is where honey is made,” Seiz says. “Humans don’t make honey, honeybees do. So, what you see with these little factories is they run on no power, meaning there’s no electricity going in there. There’s no wastewater going out. The only thing those little factories run on is sunlight and flowers. So, whenever we talk about honey, again, it’s more than a sweetener. It’s a completely sustainable product.”

Alongside its sustainable attributes, Seiz further notes that as a natural ingredient, consumers increasingly have responded to honey the past couple of years, calling attention to a 2024 Ipsos study which found that 95% of consumers view honey as natural. 

Despite honey’s legacy, there’s still more to be done on educating consumers.

“One of the main things that people don’t know about honey is that honey is not just one ingredient,” Seiz says. “There’s more than 3,000 different varietals of honey, all based on where the honeybees forage for nectar.”