04/03/08 Raising Awareness

Raising Awareness. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report. Yesterday we talked with Josh Gellert, Brand Manager with Haagen-Dazs ice cream who has created a campaign to raise awareness of the issues surrounding the honeybee. Gellert stopped me in my tracks with his statement that one in every three bites we take is attributable to the honeybee and the driving factor behind their campaign. 40% of their flavors are dependent upon the honeybee so for them, it's about awareness. GELLERT: We're also going to be doing some advertising in magazines and television really highlighting what's happening with honeybees. Basically each of our advertising pieces will drive people to the website helpthehoneybees.com where they can really dig in deeper and learn about what Haagen-Dazs is doing but also learn about what's happening with honeybees and then things that they can do themselves. Haagen-Dazs has also made a financial contribution to both UC Davis and Penn State to help further their research efforts. Gellert says that you and I can play a role in this. GELLERT: A lot of rural areas are getting taken over by subdivisions. As a bee goes over a suburban manicured lawn after suburban manicured lawn, essentially what they're seeing is a desert. There's no food for bees there. So we really want to encourage consumers to plant bee friendly flowers that provide food for our friend, the bee. Haagen-Dazs has also released a special flavor called vanilla honeybee. That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Northwest Ag Information Network.