Carrefour: A Concrete Commitment To Bees Together With 3Bee

The Carrefour initiative originated in France, where the company implemented concrete actions in line with the development programmes of the Ministry of Agriculture. Due to the enormous importance of bees for our planet, they were the target of the project. Carrefour France supported a number of beekeepers, including them in its Quality Chain, and favoured environmentally responsible practices, such as organic farms and those adopting a more sustainable farming model. It did not stop there. In 2011, Carrefour installed its first beehive at Market de Beaurains, and then went on to have 229 hives in 62 different centres. The beekeepers who thus work in close collaboration with Carrefour market their honey at its shops or donate it to associations or schools in order to make people as aware as possible of this very important issue.

This same discourse of sustainability and support for bees was also pursued by Carrefour Italia. The main problems for bees can be traced back to the expansion and ever-increasing industrialisation of agriculture, the climate gone mad and the impoverishment of habitats that drastically affects the bees' ability to collect their nourishment, pollen and nectar, from flowers. Carrefour's Quality Chain brand therefore aims not only to offer a valuable product, but also to give bees a helping hand. "Bee-Api" is the project launched in 2017 that this year will focus on citrus fruits and the following year on pears. Carrefour, the FQC producers and the CREA have created a synergy, making citrus cultivation even more sustainable. They have identified 13 of the most harmful active ingredients among those permitted and used and banned 9 of them and restricted the remaining 4.

It was precisely the importance of bees that prompted Carrefour to also support the 3Bee on the Road, a tour that took the 3Bee team for 21 days from north to south Italy in the name of beekeeping. Each stop allowed us to meet different beekeepers and talk to them about the most serious problems that bees and beekeepers have to face every day: from varroa to the velvet wasp, from climate change to habitat impoverishment, from pesticides to the difficult coexistence with agriculture.

Carrefour's involvement in bee protection does not end there, however. Carrefour has found in 3Bee an important partner in technological innovation and has decided to further support the deployment of Hive-Tech devices for remote monitoring of hives. Thanks to 3Bee systems, beekeepers can constantly monitor the status of their hives and their health, managing their bees in the best possible way and taking targeted action only when necessary. The analysis of biological parameters such as weight, temperature, internal humidity and sound intensity guides beekeepers, enabling a reduction in bee losses and mortality and an increase in production. Carrefour's interest in 3Bee arose precisely because of 3Bee's ability to combine technological innovation with bee and environmental protection activities. Carrefour and 3Bee have installed 20 Hive-Tech devices in 20 Italian regions.

The collaboration between Carrefour and 3Bee has not stopped. In fact, on World Bee Day, three nectariferous forests were created and wild pollinator huts installed, which are essential for the preservation of biodiversity. We asked Greta Bonsignore, Director of Internal and External Communications, Public Affairs and CSR, what biodiversity is for Carrefour and why they chose to rely on and choose a partnership with 3Bee: at this LINK is the full article, a true example of a sustainability path that through constant dialogue and flexibility manages to integrate bees and their value into all the company's objectives.