Sainsbury's opens doors on "bee hotels"

The race to be seen as the UK's greenest supermarket took a somewhat bizarre twist last week when Sainsbury's announced that it is to set up a network of " bee hotels" across London to help reverse the decline in the population of solitary bees.

The company said it has appointed bee expert Robin Dean to install and maintain a network of small-scale "hotels" at 38 stores across the capital.

The supermarket added that the initiative would not only help to address biodiversity loss, it could also provide a boost to the production of the fruit and vegetables upon which the firm is reliant.

"Bees are the unsung heroes of the food chain, as most fresh fruit and veg depends on bees for pollination," explained Dean. "We hope that by setting these bee hotels up at a network of stores across the city, we'll be able to help rejuvenate the bee population, and learn more about why the population has decreased so dramatically over the past few years."

He downplayed concerns that concentrating bees near Sainsbury's stores could prove unpopular with customers concerned that they may be stung.

"Solitary bees are different to honey bees," he explained. "They live in isolation rather than as part of a hive. They don't make honey, so have nothing to protect, making them docile and very unlikely to sting, so customers need not worry."

The scheme is part of a wider initiative designed to help restore bee populations, which has also seen the supermarket work with farmers to sow a seed mix designed to help support bumblebees and other insects.

Neil Sachdev, Sainsbury's commercial director, said there was a long-term commercial motive for the initiative. "We recognise that if we are to continue to sell fresh British produce in the long term, we are going to have to look at the problem of the declining bee population and do our bit to help solve the problem," he said.

"When we've gained an understanding of how well the bee hotels work in these stores, we might well consider making them a standard feature of Sainsbury's supermarkets nationwide."