In the first day of its promotion to promote pollinator health in the U.S., General Mills received 700,000 requests for wildflower seed packets.
General Mills’ popular goodwill gesture aimed at protecting pollinators generated a little unwelcome buzz last week after a high-profile website questioned whether its wildflower seed giveaway was such a good idea.
As reported last week in EBrief, General Mills erased its BuzzBee character from boxes of Honey Nut Cheerios in the U.S. and Canada, and offered to send free wildflower seeds to consumers, all in an effort to raise awareness about pollinator health.
Last week, however, the website Lifehacker posted a story suggesting the seeds included in the Honey Nut Cheerios packets, including those for forget-me-nots and California poppies, could be invasive and potentially harmful in some environments.
The company has pushed back against the Lifehacker post and subsequent consumer concerns.
“In most locations, the seed mixture species will be non-native but not considered invasive,” said John Barrett, director of sales, marketing and development with Veseys, the largest mail-order gardening company in Canada, and the company that produced the packets for General Mills. “Consumers throughout the entire U.S. will find any of the varieties contained in our seed mix in the many seed racks carried by all the major chains such as Lowes, Home Deport, Walmart, etc.” Barrett reported the company has received 700,000 requests for wildflower seed packets on the first day of the U.S. promotion; the General Mills website temporarily crashed during the onslaught and the planned allotment of 2 million packages for the program were grabbed up in just a few days.
Veseys, he said, is now “scrambling” to get more than 1.5 million additional seed packages to General Mills in the U.S. and Canada. (Ahem, local florists, if you have wildflower seeds in-store — along with expertise on what to plant in your area — it may be a good time to share that info on social media with all those empty-handed customers.
