Bee Friendlier - Cascadian Farm and The Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation and the Minnesota Bee Lab
Organic food brand Cascadian Farm was one of the first in the organic food space. As such, the company has a strong commitment to working with nature to restore people’s faith in food.
Cascadian Farm set out to be a leader in bee conservation, knowing that bees pollinate our food supply, and make possible one in every three bites of food consumed in the United States. However, bees are at risk due to habitat loss, diseases and pesticides.
The company partnered with two leading United States bee conservation organizations, The University of Minnesota Bee Lab and the Xerces Society, to create Bee Friendlier, a movement aimed at bee conservation. The program had several prongs: engaging consumers to plant native wildflowers to restore the bee habitat, to buy organic to reduce the harmful effects of pesticides, and to redeem codes from packages and the web to trigger 50-cent company donations.
In 2014, Bee Friendlier undertook one other project—seed bombing (see video below). They hired a plane, targeted a piece of land surrounded by organic crops, and dropped over 1 million native wildflower seeds to create an aerial seeding event that would bring pollinators to the area. A video of the flower bombing was featured on a microsite that served as the hub of the fundraising efforts, where it has over 1.33 million views and counting.
The stunt was covered in the New York Times, was tweeted about more than 3 million times, and discussed in 791 online spaces. Tens of thousands of dollars were raised through code redemptions and the campaign scored 3.5 million impressions while 1 million wildflowers wave in the breezes of California’s Yolo County.